Saina keen on ending title drought

How does a champion like Saina Nehwal train? What are the key attibutes of her mental conditioning? Speaking at a function to felicitate the winners of the Bangalore Ultimate Open near here on Sunday, Saina said she focuses on everything during her physical and mental conditioning. 

“You just have to work on everything — your game, your strengths. “You will have to approach every game in a relaxed manner and not worry about the result and leave it off for som­etime once it’s done. Keep the mind cool and relaxed without starting to feel nervous.”

The world No 3 won her last title defeating China’s Wang Yihan to clinch the Denmark Open last year. While it is true that she is on a nine-month title drought, Saina revealed that changes to her training in the last few weeks had made her confident of coming out of the lean patch.

“I have been on a break for the last three weeks and there is still some time to go before the World Championships. There have been a lot of changes to training and I hope everything comes good during the tournament.”

When asked about her thoughts on the Indian Badminton League (IBL), Saina felt it was a very interesting idea. “I hope it becomes a big tournament. Auctions are going to happen in some time and it sounds very interesting.”

The first edition of the IBL will be held from August 14 to 31 with the final at Mumbai.
Saina, who also took part in an exhibition game of Ultimate between the two finalists, spoke about the need for the develoment of alternate sports in India. “We need to promote more sports here if we want to become an Olympic country like China. We need to have lots of coaches and also develop the infrastructure.”

She said the growth of badminton has been amazing wi­th about 200-300 kids training in P Gopichand’s academy alone besides the hundreds elsewhere in the country and urged the government and the other sponsors to get involved to promote sports.