CWG gold is right next to my Olympic bronze: Saina

Little wonder then that she placed her singles gold in the event right up there with the trail-blazing Olympic bronze of 2012. “I really term it as next to my Olympic medal and my world No.1 ranking. So I would keep it somewhere there. It’s a gift to my father and my mother, my country. It’s a very emotional moment for me after the disappointing loss in Rio due to injury,” second seed Saina said after a straight-game but draining victory over top seed and compatriot P V Sindhu in the final here.

Saina played all the matches in the mixed team championship before competing in the individual event. Asked how her legs were holding up after continuous competition, Saina quipped: “They are dead.” Saina had a 3-1 head-tohead lead over Sindhu going into Sunday’s match and she ensured that the gap widened with a vintage performance. 

“It was a neck to neck game for me, it was even tougher because I have been playing for the last 1012 days. She is tall, she has longer legs and covers the court better than me, I have to run here and there,” Saina said of her rival and teammate. “I lost five kgs in the last few months, that helps you move faster,” she added. 

It was a perfect end to what was an imperfect start when her accredited father did not gain access to the Games village. She threatened to pull out if he wasn’t accommodated, which he eventually was, but she drew criticism for her stand. Then there were the niggles, which got aggravated during the team competition.

“The shin problem happened in the team event and I am playing with that,” she revealed when asked about the bandage she was sporting even though it hardly impacted her execution of shots. “It is not much of a problem, just twothree days of recovery is required. My match against Kirsty Gilmour went on for a long while and probably I aggravated the problem a bit,” she said. 

Asked if playing against Sindhu in a big final was more of a mental battle than anything else, Saina kept it simple. “You just have to play your game, it’s a healthy rivalry, people enjoy it, no doubt we are under tremendous pressure. But I am happy to be pulling these off. It’s not easy to play against someone who is ranked No.3 in the world now,” she said. 

“It’s a challenging match for me. I would like to thank Gopi sir for pushing me in the last three four months and Christopher, my physio, who is working hard on my body,” she said. Even though she claimed the gold with a brilliant performance, Saina said she was not in a particularly good shape. “... the rallies were going long, she was picking up all the shots well. I have never played two weeks back to back, so definitely it is one of my most exhausting campaigns,” she said.