Saina Nehwal had to settle for a bronze medal as the world No. 7 Nozomi Okuhara of Japan outplayed her in the semifinal of the BWF World Championships 12-21, 21-17, 21-10 in a match that lasted for an hour and 13 minutes.
With the win, Okuhara became the first BWF World Championships finalists from Japan, while Saina, silver medallist from the last edition in Jakarta, took home her second consecutive medal from the championships. Okuhara’s run up long winning streaks, sniffed medal at Rio and beaten the top names at topmost tourneys.
Saina started on promising note and looked fired up as she chipped away with the lead in the opening game.
On Saturday during the semis, it wasn’t so much the age but the sheer difference in the updated version of badminton that Nehwal would’ve noted in her conqueror. At the interval in first game, the 27-year-old Indian shuttler had a five-point lead with the score reading 11-6. Saina was in total control in the opening game as she landed the shuttle inside long service line on a couple of occasions after Okuhara made a wrong judgment calls. Saina eventually won the opening game 21-12 in 22 minutes.
The Japanese then bounced back in style to win the second game and take the match into the decider.
Everyone targets Nehwal at the net —making her lunge and bend. In what is within legal limits of sadism in sport, opponents make no bones about making the Indian returning from a knee surgery, put sustained pressure on that joint. Playing the soft drops to Nehwal’s forehand front corner is a bonafide tactic; only Okuhara milked it with stupendous consistency. The Japanese girl is tagged with the reputation of being a tireless retriever, which masks her ability to construct rallies that draw destructive errors from opponents.
Okuhara started the second game after collecting four consecutive points. However, Saina slowly crawled back to make it nine-all. At the break in the second game, the Japanese was leading 11-10.
After the break in the second game, Saina fought back as she kept levelling with Okuhara. At one stage, Saina was 12-15 down but earned three consecutive points. However, that was not enough to go past Okuhara, who stepped up the gas to win 21-17.
With momentum in Okuhara’s favour, she won nine straight points in the third game to make it 10-3. By then Saina was losing the physical battle as she struggled to keep pace with Okuhara’s smashes.
Going into the break, Okuhara had a seven-point advantage as she was leading 11-4 in the decider.
After the break, the two got involved in a rally of 39 shots, longest of the match, which ended in Saina’s favour. However, Okuhara continued her impressive show to win the deciding game 21-10 as Saina looked far away from her best.
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