Saina assured of bronze at World Championship

“This time too I had to play Wang Yihan, it was nearly like a final”. “It was one of the best performances by Saina”.

In the decider, Saina managed to finally take the lead at 19-18 but a 36-shot rally, which she dominated, ended in Yihan’s favour. Before the match, the former world number one from China had an intimidating 9-2 overall record against Saina.

Sharma said Saina was aggressive, positive and played a good all-round game. She was struck down by chicken pox once, stomach bug later – the 24-year-old was always laid low by some off-court problems.

Nehwal took control of the first game by putting more pressure on Yihan’s serve extracting errors from her in the process.

However, that composure deserted her in the second game as she made a few unforced errors to give Yihan nine consecutive points and the pressure was well and truly on her in the decider.

“Now here I am, playing some of the best badminton I’ve done ever”, the 27-year-old told reporters. Saina held her nerves at the crucial time, particularly when the scores was 15-all and she then trailed 15-17. “So you never know”.

The Indian ace’s coach Vimal Kumar also sounded ecstatic, and called the match “a classic”. In the third game too, Saina did a lot of catching-up and was even trailing at 16-18.

Yihan opened up a 4-1 lead at the beginning of the second game.

A World Championship medal for Saina Nehwal would have been incomplete without beating a Chinese on the way.

Saina had started chipping away at Yihan’s confidence with a win at the All England earlier this year. The Indian rushed on to a net shot to concede a point but she bounced back with a body smash. “I thought Saina was totally focussed on the match and showed great character before finishing off”.

The 25-year-old Hyderabadi, up against Chinese heavyweight Wang Yihan, took an hour and 12 minutes to assure herself her first medal at the championship with a 21-15, 19-21, 21-19 win at the Gelora Bung Karno stadium. There was disappointment in store for India in the women’s doubles quarterfinals too, as Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa lost to the Japanese duo of Naoko Fukuman and Kurumi Yonao 23-25, 14-21.

Today’s fixture: Lindaweni Fanetri (INA) vs Saina Nehwal (2).