Saina Nehwal has confirmed that she is getting married to fellow shuttler P Kashyap in December and also said that her soon-to-be husband is getting into coaching to help her career.
Reports of Saina and Kashyap’s wedding first surfaced last month and this is the first time one of them has acknowledged it. In an interview with the Times of India, Saina confirmed the date of the wedding as December 16.
“I will get busy with the Premier Badminton League from December 20 and then qualifiers for the Tokyo Games will begin, so this was the only date that we had to get married,” she told the daily.
While the 28-year-old Saina is still going strong in her career, winning the Commonwealth Games gold and Asian Games bronze this year, the 32-year-old Kashyap has dropped to a ranking of world No 57 after battling with injuries.
Saina said that Kashyap has been increasingly helping her with training. “We keep pushing each other. He is actively playing, but now he is getting into coaching so that he can help me,” she said.
The London Olympics bronze medallist said that their relationship has been at least a decade old but the two did not consider getting married earlier as they were both focussed on their careers. “It is very important to win tournaments and we didn’t want to shift our focus by getting married earlier,” she said.
“A player needs treatment and attention just like a baby. At home, I get everything without asking, but this will change once I get married. I will be equally responsible of doing things on my own. I didn’t want to rush things before the CWG and Asian Games. But now, we think we are ready for it and can manage things on our own,” she added.
Saina also spoke about her rivalry with compatriot PV Sindhu and other shuttlers on the circuit such as Tai Tzu Ying and Carolina Marin. The 28-year-old said she is glad that Sindhu, an Olympic silver medallist, is doing well as it “pushes me to win more”. She said, “Challenges and rivalries grow when two people are playing equally well in one sport, so I don’t get bothered by the comparisons.”
Saina added that Tai Tzu, Marin and Akane Yamaguchi trouble her the most on the circuit and that she is working on how to tackle them. She singled out Tai Tzu, the world No 1, as the most difficult shuttler to decode. “She has so many variations. She has a shot for every situation and you have to be really fit to have answers for those shots,” Saina said.
She has shots even when she is in trouble. To beat her, you have to be super fit, like how at the moment Carolina is, retrieving all the shots, catching it really high. You have to really get Tai scared of playing those shots, which is not easy. At her best, she can beat anyone below 10 also. She is a player, who is beyond strategies, I feel,” Saina added.
You can read the entire interview here.
