Saina Nehwal

The competition will not be as tough as the World Championship was but a guarded Saina Nehwal prefers not to take anything for granted as she feels even one bad shot can derail her gold medal bid at the Commonwealth Games.

The 20 year old Hyderabadi was the hot favourite to at least reach the final during the World Championship in August but some ‘silly mistakes’ as she defines them stopped her run in Paris at the quarterfinals itself.

The competition is not as tough as the World championship but all these girls would be coming prepared and you can never predict what happens. At times, when you are tense, you play a bad shot and there is no chance of a recovery,” Saina told in an interview.

Since bursting into the scene at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games, Saina has had a dream run and the ace Indian shuttler says winning gold at the CWG will add to her confidence ahead of next month’s Asian Games. Saina considers the 2006 Melbourne CWG a launching pad and said it was the event which catapulted her to the big league.

“4 years ago, I was very new and was just trying to play and I never expected that I will get a chance to play in the CWG. Nobody expected Aparna to get injured and that I will be asked to play. But it was an awesome experience as it gave me a lot of confidence and helped me win big tournaments after that. In a way, it proved to be a launch pad for me,” Saina said.

“I beat many top players of that time. Tracy Hallam was world number 7 at that time and I also defeated Li Li of Singapore. I was free of tension; there were no expectations, no pressure. I needed some experience and it was a good experience, infact an experience for lifetime and a confidence booster,” she said.

Saina had helped India win the mixed teams bronze in Melbourne 4 years ago. She then went on to become the first Indian woman to win a Grand Prix gold event by clinching the Philippines Open.

Her phenomenal rise in world badminton continued as she won the Chinese Taipei title before winning 3 back to back titles this season. “It has been a great year for me and I know now there would be a lot of pressure and people will expect me to win and I hopefully will try to do well here.

“I have slogged hard and put my soul into preparing myself. That’s what I can do. I hope I can perform the same way here in front of my home crowd,” she said.

Tags: Badminton, Commonwealth Games, Commonwealth Games, Grand Prix, Indian Sports, Saina Nehwal, Sports, Sports India, World Championship