From Sania mixes to sporting immortality: Farewell Saina Nehwal, India’s pioneer | Badminton News – The Times of India

Saina Nehwal and Sania Mirza can easily be termed as two of the most recognizable faces of women athletes in India. Many came before them and many after them, but the credit of popularizing two widely followed racket sports in India, especially among girls, goes to these two world beaters.Go beyond the border with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!When Saina came into the limelight, Sania was already a star as she had started her professional career a few years before the future badminton superstar. In fact, young journalists initially confused the two names quite a bit, but that finally ended when Saina stormed to superstardom with the Olympic medal at the 2012 London Games.

That wasn’t the case when Saina started making a name for herself in 2008, winning gold at the World Junior Championships. At the time, Sania was a star and a style icon, having already reached US Open quarter-finals in both doubles and mixed doubles the year before, and finished second in the Australian Open mixed doubles in early 2008.Both are clear pioneers in their respective sports, and soon the ‘i’ and ‘n’ in Saina were no longer confused as ‘n’ and ‘i’ as in Sania.From the junior gold medal, Saina didn’t take much time to penetrate the minds and hearts of Indian sports enthusiasts as she became the first Indian woman to reach the quarter-finals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. That was just the beginning of many firsts for Saina in a long and storied career.On Monday, the former world No. 1 shuttler finally ended her career at the age of 35, announcing her retirement from competitive badminton after more than two years out of action due to a chronic knee condition.She signed off as one of India’s greatest sportspersons, a pioneer credited with popularizing her sport in the country, and one who conquered her world with grit and courage.Saina medaled in all major badminton events, including Olympic bronze and silver at the BWF World Championship. She started with gold at the world junior championships and went on to win two gold medals at the Commonwealth Games.

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The final farewellIt was an anti-climactic end to a fairytale career for Saina, who last played a competitive match at the Singapore Open in 2023.In a podcast hosted by Subhojit Ghosh, Saina revealed her decision and the reasons behind it: “I had stopped playing two years ago. I actually felt like I came into the sport on my own terms and left on my own terms, so there was no need to announce it.”Saina said, referring to conversations with her parents and coaches: “Your cartilage has completely degenerated, you have arthritis… I just told them, ‘Now I probably can’t do it anymore, it’s difficult’.”End of an eraIt was in 2008, after becoming world junior champion, that Saina came into the spotlight as the rising star of the sport. She subsequently became the first Indian woman to reach the singles quarterfinals at the Beijing Olympics that same year.In 2009, she became the first Indian to win a BWF Super Series title by clinching the Indonesia Open, and a year later became the Commonwealth Games champion in Delhi.But the most defining moment of her career came in London 2012, when Saina became India’s first Olympic medalist in badminton, winning bronze in women’s singles.

Saina Nehwal’s top awards and achievements (AI-generated image)

In 2015, she created more history by becoming the world No. 1 in singles, establishing herself as the first Indian woman to achieve the feat and only the second shuttler from the country after Prakash Padukone.She also became the first shuttler from the country to reach the final of the BWF World Championships that same year, but lost the final to Carolina Marin.She suffered her first major knee injury during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and it subsequently became an Achilles heel for her. However, Saina made a stunning comeback to win bronze at the 2017 World Championships and gold at the 2018 CWG.And on Monday, an international career spanning nearly two decades was officially ended, drawing the curtain on a truly remarkable journey.