Glasgow: At the start of the Badminton World Championships, if anyone had offered Saina Nehwal a choice between Kristy Gilmour and any of the Asian players as possible quarterfinal opponents, she would have not batted an eye-lid in choosing Gilmour.

The 2015 World Championship finalist had already beaten her Scottish opponent four times in the past in straight games. She probably knew what to expect from the 23-year-old European championship silver medallist. It is no secret that Gilmour relies on her powerful jump smashes and speed, but even Nehwal wouldn’t have thought that the local hope could raise the tempo to a level that playing her would be a physical ordeal.

To Nehwal’s credit, she hung in when the going was tough, grabbed the opportunities by the scruff of the neck and pulled off a stunning 21-19, 18-21, 21-15 victory in an hour and 14 minutes. Reaching her second successive semifinal, she also assured India of two medals at the world championship for the first time.

Nehwal’s second world championship semifinal appearance is even more special because the 26-year-old had struggled on court after returning from a career-threatening knee injury and a surgery that hampered her at Olympics last year.

With Rio Olympics silver medallist PV Sindhu already making it to the semifinals from the top half, Nehwal’s run has also raised hopes of a possible all-India summit clash in Glasgow – a feat only achieved by China and Indonesia in women’s singles so far.

But as Nehwal pointed out in the post-match media interaction, there is still one match to go for that possibility to come into reality. Before she can think about facing the indomitable Nozomi Okuhara in the semifinals, that she needs to recover from the pounding her body took during the quarterfinals, she added.

Nehwal’s last eight encounter was more like a boxing bout where the competitor with stronger legs and hand speed tries to outmuscle the opponent with a flurry of heavy punches while the other just tries to hang in there till an opportunity to counter-punch presents itself.

Gilmour gave Nehwal a glimpse of what to expect with an expansive down the line smash on the very second point of the game and every time Nehwal erred in sending the shuttle till the back line, the Scottish star would simple catch it in mid-flight and unleash a winner with ferocious pace.

The 23-year-old can probably rise as high as the top male shuttlers while going for those jump smashes and her ability to mix those attacking tosses while in flight only adds to the level of difficulty in dealing with her. And having packed of Chinese sixth seed He Bingjiao in the pre-quarterfinals, it looked Nehwal could suffer the same fate when Gilmour bagged nine straight points in the opening game to race from 5-8 to 14-8.

But Nehwal probably knew that maintaining that high tempo was going to be difficult for even a person as strong as Gilmour and concentrated on playing longer rallies till the Scottish player either made a mistake or provide her an opportunity for a clear winner.

“It was a very difficult match. I had beaten her four times before but she has improved a lot and those smashes are really hard to return. She also has the variation in those smashes and that makes it really difficult,” said Nehwal, adding she struggled to negotiate the pace at which Gilmour was playing for most part of the opening game.

There were many occasions when the 23-year-old Glaswegian simply out muscled Nehwal in a rally as the speed of her punches and drives would make the Indian scamper around and use every ounce of strength in the body to keep the shuttle in play.

However, Nehwal also knew that such high tempo also made Gilmour susceptible to errors and she just ensured that the shuttled stayed in play long enough to force her opponent into going for expansive shots.

“Initially she just kept me glued to the net and then would attack anything that I hit up. But then I started playing downwards and was lucky to pull of the first game,” Nehwal said.

But the effort of the opening game showed on her leg strength and Nehwal automatically tried to slow down the game so as to catch a breather. But that approach only played into the hands of Gilmour as she made the Indian move around and finished a lot of points with cross court half smashes after pushing her opponent to the backhand corner.

It was therefore important for Nehwal to start the third and final game on the front foot and the experienced campaigner kept things simple by playing flatter strokes to race to a 5-0 lead. With even Gilmour tiring from the effort she had to put into those smashes, the 12th seeded Indian made her opponent move to all four corners of the court and grabbed every opportunity to finish things off with a smash of her own.

With the crowd getting behind their local star, Gilmour did try to find another gear after changing ends with an 11-5 deficit but Nehwal was smart enough to keep a tight leash on the situation and wrap up the match on her third match point.

“Just when you’ve had a mammoth rally and someone shouts ‘go on you can do it’, I feel you’re right, I can do it! That little bit of reinforcement that I so seldom get when I’m playing away in Asia or wherever,” said Gilmour.

“I can feel a lot of good things coming together, it’s so satisfying to have that feeling. Just five or six points away from a World Medal, the margins are so fine, if I could just have got found those extra little bits here and there. Overall, disappointment tinged with some happiness I guess,” she added.

Praising Gilmour’s performance and progress over the years, Nehwal admitted that there were occasions when she felt her legs lacked the strength to stay in the rallies but she could pull off the encounter thanks to the belief she got after beating second seed Sung Ji Hyun in the pre-quarterfinals.

“I have a really tough draw since I am not among the top seeds. But I am happy to have pulled off two good wins and I will try my best against Okuhara,” she added.

Okuhara needed an hour and 33 minutes to see off defending champion Carolina Marin 21-18, 14-21, 21-15 in the other quarterfinal.

With Okuhara’s penchant for retrieving and long rallies, Nehwal would have to be prepared for another slugfest on Saturday and a good recovery overnight would be the primary requirement.

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