When Saina Nehwal announced her decision to return to the Gopichand Academy soon after winning the World Championship bronze medal in August last year, the general reaction was that of shock.
The 27-year-old had just managed to surprise everyone with a medal-winning performance when most experts were ready to write obituaries of a stellar career and it was difficult to understand why she would want to change something at this stage.
True, it was tempting for Nehwal to get a chance to work with Indonesian coach Mulyo Handoyo, who had by then helped India win four of the seven Superseries titles they grabbed in the year. And the way PV Sindhu moved on court throughout the tournament en route to winning the silver medal would have made the London Olympics bronze medallist believe that there is lot more for her to learn from the man, who once coached and nurtured her badminton idol Taufik Hidayat.
But between all the talk about wanting to get more fitter and move better, the world number 12 dropped enough hints about how she had been contemplating this decision for quite some time.
She had left the Gopichand Academy after losing out on a World Championship medal in 2014 and had won a world championship silver, many more Superseries titles and even scaled the peak of world ranking before a knee injury ahead of the Rio Olympics brought her world crashing down.
It was probably during the period of rehabilitation where she got to spend a lot of time with her family and friends back in Hyderabad that the 27-year-old realised what she was missing. She definitely soldiered on after returning to full training in November 2016 as the desire to get back to her best and prove that she was not a spent force was good enough for her to stay focused on the job at hand.
But a week together with the group, including Pullela Gopichand, in Glasgow and the presence of Handoyo probably served as a final trigger.
The way things ultimately panned out, Nehwal didn’t really get to work with Handoyo a lot as she was first nursing a hamstring injury and the Indonesian was already looking to pack his bags by the time the London Olympics bronze medallist was ready to go full throttle in training.
The results were also hard to come by but the 27-year-old was showing glimpses of her old confident self with the win over PV Sindhu in the senior nationals in Nagpur in November showcasing the tactical brilliance and renewed vigour of the champion.
It all came together in the Indonesia Masters this week as Nehwal reached her first final in over a year.
It’s true that she was done in by a brilliant Tai Tzu Ying in the final - once again exposing her weakness against quality stroke players - but her run to the final and the way she handled her opponents’ game, expressed herself with a variety of strokes and different gameplans till the summit clash was a joy to watch.
If she dug deep to fight back against world championship semi-finalist Chen Yufei in the opening round, the three-time Indonesia Open champion was tactically brilliant in packing off Sindhu as she did not allow the world number three to get her attacking game going and controlled the match throughout.
Against Ratchnok Intanon, she was willing to grind it out despite the higher number of errors and showed steely nerves on the big points to pull of another victory.
She later credited the run to her improved movement and fitness and even said that she was getting her touch back. “For me last season was not good. I was losing first, second round or maximum quarters. So the training what I did before this, two weeks after the PBL (Premier Badminton League), was quite good. (I am) Not really up to the mark but I am happy that I am moving well,” she said after beating Intanon.
“I have the confidence, because I have beaten these players before. But the touch was not coming. I was not able to cross the rounds because my fitness was not up to the mark. But in this tournament, I can see that my fitness is good. Even I am able to hit well, move well. So automatically the results are coming,” she added.
It’s true that Nehwal has been putting in a lot of work on improving her fitness under the watchful eyes of her trainers and Gopichand himself has been working on her movements at the academy soon after the PBL. She has even altered her diet plan to lose weight and all that has beginning to come together.
But like Nehwal herself pointed out, she got just about two weeks to prepare for the Indonesia Masters after the PBL, in which she was clearly not at her best due to an ankle injury.
So what has really changed for Nehwal in Indonesia? And the answer is revealed while watching the 27-year-old train at the SAI-Gopichand Academy back in Hyderabad.
Though the sessions are intense and the coaches pushing her to the limits every day, the smile on her face, the light-hearted banter with fellow players and the hunger to learn new deceptive strokes tells one how much she has started enjoying herself again.
Nehwal is a reserved person and her social circle has always revolved around a small group of friends in the academy and her family members. Though she did not slack during training at Bangalore, the stay in the single room of the Karnataka Badminton Academy complex away from her friends and family had started to affect her emotionally and she was also worried about her father’s health.
Coming back to Hyderabad has allowed her to shrug off that lethargy and that is showing not just in the way she is playing but also in her overall confidence and interactions with the media and fans.
It is pretty clear that the Indonesia Masters run notwithstanding, Nehwal isn’t going to be challenging for every title and would have to pick and choose her tournaments.
By her own admission, she needs 4-5 weeks of sustained training without further injuries to get back to full fitness. Finding that period is going to be a challenge given the new tournament format rolled out by the Badminton World Federation that makes it mandatory for top players to play 12 tournaments a year and the Commonwealth and Asian Games adding to the already cramped calendar.
That is why Nehwal has requested the Badminton Association of India to allow her to skip next month’s Badminton Asia Team Championship to prepare for the bigger tournaments. The BAI, currently, seems reluctant to give her that leeway.
But after this performance in Indonesia, one can only hope that better sense will prevail and the decision makers would focus on helping the 27-year-old find the right balance to not just remain injury-free but also keep her hunger for winning intact.