BIRMINGHAM: Olympic bronze medalist Saina Nehwal’s quest for becoming the first Indian woman to win the most prestigious All England badminton championship ended in agony after she suffered a heart-breaking loss to Spain’s Carolina Marin in the summit clash on Sunday.
The World No. 3 Indian let go of a huge opportunity to script history as she squandered an opening game lead to go down 21-16 14-21 7-21 to the reigning world champion in the women’s singles final that lasted for little over an hour.
Saina, who has been competing at the All England since 2007, had never lost to Carolina and looked on course for an encore before the World No. 6 Spaniard scripted a remarkable comeback in the second game to put paid to the Indian’s hopes at the Barclaycard Arena.
A billion hopes rode on Saina as she geared up for the finals with cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar also wishing her luck through social networking site twitter, but the Indian ace failed to live up to the expectation.
After dominating the opening game completely, Saina was leading 11-9 in the second but lost steam after the break, as Carolina fought back brilliantly and bagged eight out of the last nine points.
In the decider, Carolina stamped her authority with her sharp smashes and better movement to completely make it a one-sided contest as Saina could only watch her hopes went up in smoke.
Saina, who had defeated Carolina in the finals of the Syed Modi International championship at Lucknow in January early this year, started as the hot favourite.
Sporting a black dress, Saina started off with an unforced error but soon brought out her power-packed smashes to lead 4-2.
The left handed Carolina conceded points in unforced errors to allow Saina lead 8-4 but every time the Spaniard won a point her celebration was vocal, perhaps to put mental pressure on the Indian.
In the decider, Carolina once again led 3-1 early on and soon zoomed to 6-2 as there was a visible change in Saina’s demeanour. Her strokes started going wayward, even her service returns went wide and her movement grew slower.
Carolina showed her brilliance through her exceptional smashes and soft touches.
Her smashes found the Indian napping on more than one occasion and another unforced error meant the Spaniard was leading 11-4 at the break.
The pressure of playing in the finals probably got to her as Saina’s game crumbled inexplicably. (PTI)
