Hyderabad, August 14: Saina Nehwal caused a million heartbeats to skip as she nearly blew her chances of a quarterfinal place at the World Badminton Championships at Gachibowli Stadium on Thursday.
Trailing by a game and looking to equalise with a 18-10 lead, the world No.6 looked desperate as her opponent, Petya Nedelcheva of Bulgaria, notched one point after another to climb back to level terms at 18-18. A stunned crowd watched in disbelief as India’s brightest prospect seemed to be on her way out, but Saina somehow found her range, cracked three smashes to Petya’s backhand, and levelled at one-game all. The rest of the match went Saina’s way and she became the first Indian woman in the quarterfinals of the World Championships.
Earlier, Indian mixed doubles pair Jwala Gutta and V Diju justified their eighth seeding with a comfortable win over Poland pair Robert Mateusiak/ Nadiezda Kostiuczyk to enter the quarters, but Chetan Anand failed on the big stage, falling tamely to Indonesian Sony Dwi Kuncoro. Saina will play No.2 Wang Lin, while Diju/Jwala will take on reigning champions Nova Widianto and Lilyana Natsir, a pair they’ve beaten in their last match. Both Saina and Diju/ Jwala therefore have a good chance of making the semifinals.
Chetan was shoddy right through, even though his Indonesian opponent was suffering from a bad back. Kuncoro even stopped briefly to bend over and feel it gingerly. If Chetan was sublime in his first match, he looked a mess on Thursday, failing to engage Kuncoro in rallies or even dominate the net. Kuncoro, despite his bad back, was fast and powerful and did not allow Chetan a foothold in the match. “I was off rhythm from the beginning,” said Chetan. “My strategy was all wrong. Because I played fast in my last match, I tried the same tactics here and it didn’t work because his defence was good. I should’ve been more patient and engaged him in rallies.”
Diju and Jwala finished the first game off quickly but ran into some trouble in the second. The game was close all the way until the Indians surged to two match points at 20-18. The Poland pair equalised, but Diju imposed himself and whipped a flurry of smashes to close out the match. “They were slightly ahead in the second game,” said Diju. “We then took a shuttle break and then the momentum turned our way.”
Schenk stuns no.4 seed
Juliane Schenk, a 26-year-old German playing the match of her life, stunned No.4 seed and All England champion Wang Yihan, delivering a blow to the Chinese. Thursday was a good day for Europe, with two Europeans each in the quarterfinals of the men’s and women’s singles.
–Agencies