Saina Nehwal maintained her stranglehold on PV Sindhu as she clinched her second successive and overall fourth senior national badminton title with a 21-18, 21-15 win at the TRP Stadium in Guwahati on Saturday.
Nehwal, who had beaten Sindhu in the last edition’s final in Nagpur and then twice more, including the Commonwealth Games summit clash, was in control throughout the 44-minute encounter that failed to keep the spectators at the edge of their seats.
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Nehwal, who has a better head-to-head record against Sindhu on the international stage, had a simple game plan of hurrying Sindhu and then overpowering her with smashes which were either aimed at the world No 6’s body or down the line to her backhand.
It did not help Sindhu’s cause that she was struggling with her judgement on the back line in the opening game and gave Nehwal at least half a dozen points due to her error of judgement.
On the other hand, the defending champion was clearly confident of her court coverage and willing to pounce on every shuttle that was played mid court by Sindhu.
This meant that Nehwal was able to keep the rallies shorter, which was clearly her game plan. And, on a couple of occasions, when Sindhu did manage to extend the point beyond 10-12 strokes the 23-year-old was guilty of throwing it away with due to an error in judgement. This happened at 18-17 in the opening game.
Sindhu began better in the second game, looking to push Nehwal into playing longer rallies but she was clearly struggling with the lengths of her net lifts – either pushing them too far or over compensating for it by pulling them mid court for her opponent to kill.
And when Nehwal won four straight points from 15-13, Sindhu’s body language clearly showed that she had lost the fight — the one match point saved was just an aberration.
In mixed doubles final, Manu Atri and K Maneesh then got the better of top seeds Kuhoo Garg and Rohan Kapoor 18-21, 21-17, 21-16 before Shikha Gautam and Ashwini Bhat K clinched the women’s doubles crown with a 21-16, 22-20 win over J Meghana and Poorvisha S Ram.
