Saina Nehwal: Sometimes you feel like giving up

Injury-ravaged Saina Nehwal enters India Open second round; insists she is keen to see how her body copes

Saina Nehwal: Sometimes you feel like giving up

India’s Saina Nehwal in action against Czech Republic’s Tereza Svabikova at the KD Jadhav Indoor hall in New Delhi yesterday. Pic/BAI

Injury-ravaged Saina Nehwal on Wednesday opened up about her prolonged fitness issues, saying the thought of giving up did cross her mind but she has taken it up as a challenge to see how many more injuries her body can cope with. The former World No.1 was forced to miss a lot of tournaments in 2021, including the World Championships, due to multiple injuries.

Round Two

Still not completely fit, Nehwal reached the second round of the India Open, where she was not even expecting to play. She advanced after her opponent Czech Republic’s Tereza Svabikova suffered a back injury and retired mid-way, on Wednesday. Nehwal was leading 22-20, 1-0 at that time.

“I was able to take the tough training but one bad slip and my groin had lot of issues. I got a tear [during Thomas and Uber Cup Final], but I didn’t know that the knee was also going through some issues which got bad in French Open,” Saina said during a virtual press conference.

‘I was limping’

“Till that match, I didn’t know it was so bad and after that I was limping. It is a challenge and I want to accept. Let’s see what all injuries my body can cope with. It is not easy, sometimes you feel like giving up,” remarked Nehwal, who said sitting on the fence, waiting for injuries to heal is something which really bothered her.

Other key results

. Malvika Bansod bt Samiya Imad Farooqui 21-18, 21-9
. HS Prannoy bt Pablo Abian (Spain) 21-14, 21-7
. Mithun Manjunath bt Arnaud Merkle (Fra) 21-16, 15-21, 21-10
. Nhat Nguyen (Ireland) bt Ajay Jayaram 19-21, 21-7 21-14
. Lakshya Sen bt Adham Hatem Elgamal (Egypt) 21-15, 21-7
. Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty bt Chirag Arora/Ravi 21-14, 21-10
. Ashwini Ponnappa/N Sikki Reddy bt Janani Ananthakumar/Divya R Balasubramanian 21-7, 19-21, 21-13

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