Saina storms into semifinal

Sat, Jun 14 01:05 AM

EVER SINCE she booked her Beijing Olympics berth, Saina Nehwal and national coach Pullela Gopichand were harping on the need for the 17-year-old to work on her strength and stamina before starting preparations for the quadrennial Games. The national champion put in six weeks of training in Hyderabad before embarking on her pre-Olympic training-cum-tournament programme earlier this month.

The results of the hard work are beginning to show in the very first tournament as the world number 30 won her second three-game match in three days to book a semifinal berth in the Singapore Open Super Series on Friday. In the quarterfinals, Saina got the better of Indonesian Firdasari Adrianti 21-16, 16-21, 21-14 in 47 minutes to set up a last four encounter with former All England champion and Olympic bronze medallist Zhou Mi of Hong Kong.

The India Open champion defeated compatriot Chen Wang 21-17, 21-19 in the other quarterfinal. "The Hyderabad camp has helped in building my stamina as I was playing with boys there.

The confidence that I can last in tough games is also making a difference in the way I am approaching matches," Saina told Hindustan Times over phone from Singapore. "Even today, we played long rallies and once I got a hang of her game, I changed tactics and began playing at the net and keeping the shuttle down," said the former Philippines Open champion, who also had a two week training stint with Misbun and Rashid Sidek in Malaysia prior to this tournament.

Saina, who defeated the experienced Jie Yao of The Netherlands in the first round, could have wrapped the tie in two games but she committed a couple of unforced errors to hand the initiative to Adrianti, who had packed off top seed Hongyan PI of France in the earlier round. "Though I lost the second game, I was confident and kept my nerves in the decider once I had taken the lead," Saina added.

Gopichand, who is also Saina's mentor, was happy with the way his ward handled the big points and said it augured well. "She is playing the close games with a lot more confidence.

Today she was also tactically superior to her opponent." Despite the close match, Saina is confident of coming up with a similar performance against Zhou.

"She has fantastic strokes and is a very experienced player. But I am sure she is beatable," she signed off.

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