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Saina vs the World

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Saina NehwalBorn: 17 March 1990 Birthplace: Hisar, HaryanaAchievements: Individual titles 22 | Bronze 2012 Olympics | Gold 2010 Commonwealth Games | Silver 2015 World Championships
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Rohit Mahajan

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Four years after she won a landmark medal in the Olympics, Saina Nehwal faces an odd predicament — her mighty Chinese adversaries have all declined, but her chances of winning another Olympics medal have declined as well.

At London 2012, it was truly Saina vs China. The top three players were Chinese, Nehwal was seeded fourth. To win a medal, Nehwal had to beat at least one of the three Chinese in the field. In the event she didn’t need to beat Wang Xin in their bronze medal match — Xin retired early in the second game due to an injury.

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Gold and silver went to China, of course. China’s grip on the game was extremely strong — now things are different. Women’s badminton has been split wide open by a few talented young women. Such was China’s dominance that their decline — relatively speaking, for there are still two Chinese girls in the top-5 rankings — has been something of a shock. In 2013, Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand became this century’s first non-Chinese world champion; 2015 also saw a non-Chinese world champion, Carolina Marin of Spain. For two years in a row, the All England title has been won by non-Chinese players — Marin in  2015, Nozomi Okuhara in 2016.

There’s another horror statistic — no Chinese girl has won one of the elite Super Series titles this year. The six tournaments so far have been won by women from four different countries. Nehwal, Okuhara and Tai Tzu-ying have won one each, Intanon has won three. Last year, only two Chinese women won Super Series titles — five non-Chinese women shared the other 10 titles.

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Tougher job

This brings us to the heart of the matter — it’s going to be much, much tougher for Nehwal to win an Olympics medal at Rio than it was at London. The field has become a lot more varied, the variety of playing styles more diverse, the competition more intense. Consider this year’s Super Series events — Nehwal has lost to Tai Tzu-ying (Chinese Taipei), Li Xuerui (China, the Olympics champion), Tai Tzu-ying, and Marin in these tournaments, before she won in Australia by beating Wang Yihan (China, 2012 Olympics silver medallist). She has struggled against Marin and Tai Tzu-ying in particular.

Nehwal remains India’s best hope of a medal, there’s no question about that — but the field is much wilder, dangerous now, with more players capable of defeating her than in 2012. Saina, her body weary after over a decade of top-flight competition, has been troubled by injuries. Her game was based on explosive speed and power; now her efforts are directed at getting fitter and stronger. 

“I am at a stage where I have improved a lot, but there is a lot more to go. There are players like Carolina who are faster, Li Xuerui has a good technical game, Nozomi Okuhara is good in rallies,” Nehwal said earlier this month. “I feel I need time to match these players. To be at your best you need seven-eight weeks. Till now it’s pretty good, hopefully in the next four weeks it goes well.”

Sindhu’s progress

2013 was the breakthrough year for PV Sindhu — she became the first Indian woman to win a singles medal at the World Championships. She also won two Super Series titles. Suddenly, out of the blue, Sindhu was challenging Nehwal’s position as India’s best woman player. Nehwal no longer had national coach P Gopi Chand’s undivided attention; Nehwal fretted over this, and switched to Vimal Kumar. The change did wonders to her game, and she rose to world No. 1 last year.

Meanwhile, Sindhu won her second World Championships bronze medal. But somewhere along the way, as Sindhu became a feared player, she began to plateau — her progress slowed down, she didn’t simply zoom to the top. She had seemed set to challenge Nehwal once, but Nehwal still remains India’s best player. Sindhu has won two World Championships medals, yet she’s not been able to take the next step. 

Other five

Sindhu, still, is India’s second-best bet for a medal.  But there are others in the squad — with seven members, this is India’s biggest squad at the Olympics. In 2008, there were only two Indians in the fray, and there were five in the team of 2012.

Kidambi Srikanth, the 23-year-old Hyderabadi, is India’s sole representative in the men’s singles field. The world No. 11 can be a dangerous player on his day and has recorded wins against several players ranked higher than him — including a rare win over the great Lin Dan, back in 2014. This year he won the Syed Modi International title and, after a lean period, reached the Australian Super Series semifinals.

How far can he go? He’s going to play Lino Munoz of Mexico and Sweden’s Henri Hurskainen in the group stage. He’s likely to face world No. 5 Jan O Jorgensen of Denmark in the pre-quarters — that’s a tough one. If he gets past the Dane, Srikanth is likely to face Lin Dan in the quarters.

The women’s doubles team of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa won a World Championships medal, a bronze in 2011. But, to put it subtly, they’ve not improved since those heady days. At the Uber Cup recently, when India reached the semifinals, Gutta and Ponnappa posted a few good wins, but when faced with top-flight opponents, they could not cause upsets, including in their 6-21, 6-21 defeat to China’s Tian Qing and Zhao Yunlei in the semifinals.

Can they win a medal at Rio? Well, they’re ranked No. 22 in the world — not exactly favourites at Rio, where they are not seeded. To win a medal at Rio, they’d have to create a trail of stunning upsets over rivals who are clearly superior to them. The same can be said of the men’s doubles team of Manu Atri and B Sumeeth Reddy — they’re ranked No. 21 in the world. A medal seems to be a bit too much to expect of them as well.

Badminton at Rio

Number of Gold medals 5

2 men, 2 women

1 mixed team

Event Dates

Aug 11–20

Indian angle

India will have seven players in four categories — Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu in women’s singles; Jwala Gutta & Ashwini Ponnappa in women’s doubles and; Kidambi Srikanth in men’s singles; and Manu Attri & B Sumeeth Reddy in men’s doubles 

Schedule

Women’s singles: Preliminary matches from Aug 11 to 14, Round of 16 on Aug 15, Quarterfinals on Aug 16, Semifinals on Aug 18 and Final on Aug 19

Men’s singles: Preliminary matches from Aug 11 to 14, Round of 16 on Aug 15, Quarterfinals on Aug 17, Semifinals on Aug 19 and Final on Aug 20

Format

  • As in 2012, the players have been divided into different groups of up to four players each. From the group stage, the top players would qualify for the knockout stages
  • A total of 172 athletes are expected to compete in five events — men’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s singles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles
  • Matches will be played in the best-of-three-games format
  • Due to the match-fixing scandal of 2012, when four pairs were disqualified, the format has been changed. All pairs finishing second in their groups would be placed into another draw to determine who they would face in the next round

Favourites

  • China is the badminton superpower of the world, winning 38 medals in all; 28 of these were won in the women’s singles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles tournaments.  Indonesia and South Korea have won 18 medals each
  • Badminton became an Olympics sport in 1992 and since, then, only once did a non-Asian win a gold — Poul-Erik Hoyer Larsen won men’s singles title in 1996
  • In men’s singles at Rio, Lin Dan is going for his third consecutive gold medal — he won the title in 2008 and 2012 , both times by beating Malaysia’s Lee Chong Wei in the final
  • Doubles specialist Gao Ling of China has won 4 medals in the Olympics, including two gold in men’s doubles in 2000 and 2004, both times with Zhang Jun

Legend

  • Lin Dan, who will turn 33 in October, is considered the greatest badminton player of all time — he is a two-time Olympics champion, five-time world champion, and six-time All England champion. 
  • He has won all nine major titles in badminton — Olympic Games, World Championships, World Cup, Thomas Cup, Sudirman Cup, Super Series Masters Finals, All England Open, Asian Games, and Asian Championships. He is the first and only player to achieve this feat

Short Takes

Bryan brothers pull out of Rio Games 

New York: Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan, the men’s doubles champions, have pulled out of the Rio Games saying their family's health is their top priority. “After countless hours of deliberation, Mike and I have decided to forego the Rio Olympics,” the pair said on their Facebook page on Saturday. “Though we’d love to compete again, as husbands and fathers, our family's health is now our top priority.” Many athletes have withdrawn from the Olympics over concerns about the mosquito-borne Zika virus. The Bryan brothers won the Olympics gold at the London 2012 Games and own 112 titles together, including 16 Grand Slams. 

Russia to argue ban in civil courts 

MOSCOW: Russia will argue the suspension of its athletes from the Olympics in civil courts, Minister of Sports Vitaly Mutko said on Saturday. “We shall apply to civil courts, that would be for the protection of our honour, dignity and for moral damage,” he said. “We should do so after the Olympics.” WADA had urged the International Olympic Committee to ban the entire Russian contingent after an Independent Commission confirmed a total of 643 cases of Disappearing Positive Test Results in Russia between 2012 and 2015 involving athletes from 30 sports.” 

Australia evacuate Village after small fire           

RIO DE JANEIRO: Australia’s athletes were forced to evacuate their lodgings at the Olympics Village after a small fire in a basement parking area caused smoke to fill the stairwells. Australian team spokesman Mike Tancred said about 100 athletes and officials were evacuated from their building in the sprawling athletes’ Village. The compound contains 31 buildings and will accommodate 18,000 athletes and officials at the peak of the Games. “The stairwells filled with smoke, but the fire was confined to the carpark and no one was injured,” Tancred said in a statement.

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