Saina Nehwal and Sania Mirza can be safely termed as two of the most recognisable faces of female sportspersons in India. Many came before them and many after, but the credit of popularising two widely followed racquet sports in India, especially among girls, goes to these two world beaters.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!When Saina came into the limelight, Sania was already a star, having started her professional career a few years ahead of the future badminton superstar. In fact, young journalists confused the two names quite a bit initially, but all that ended permanently when Saina stormed to superstardom with the Olympic medal at the London Games in 2012.
It was not the case when Saina started making her name in 2008, winning the world junior championship gold. At that time, Sania was a star and a style icon, and had already played US Open quarter-finals in both doubles and mixed doubles a year earlier, and finished runner-up at the Australian Open mixed doubles event at the start of 2008.Both of them are definite trailblazers in their respective sports, and soon the ‘i’ and ‘n’ in Saina were no longer confused as ‘n’ and ‘i’ as in Sania.From junior gold, Saina did not take much time to enter the minds and hearts of Indian sports lovers as she became the first Indian woman to reach the quarter-finals at the Olympics during the 2008 Beijing Games. 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 closed her career at 35, announcing her retirement from competitive badminton after being out of action for more than two years due to a chronic knee condition.She signed off as one of the greatest sportspersons in India, a pioneer credited for popularising her sport in the country, and one who conquered her world with grit and gumption.Saina had medals in all the major badminton events, including an Olympic bronze and a BWF World Championship silver. She started with junior world championship gold and went on to win two gold medals at the Commonwealth Games.
AI Generated Infographic
The Final GoodbyeIt 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 announced her decision and the reasons behind it: “I had stopped playing two years back. I actually felt that I entered the sport on my own terms and left on my own terms, so there was no need to announce it.”Saina, while referring to discussions with her parents and coaches, said: “Your cartilage has totally degenerated, you have arthritis… I just told them, ‘Now probably I can’t do it anymore, it is difficult’.”End of an EraIt was in 2008, after becoming the junior world champion, that Saina came into the limelight as the upcoming star of the sport. She then became the first Indian woman to make the singles quarter-finals at the Beijing Olympics the 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, she became a Commonwealth Games champion in Delhi.But the most defining moment in her career came at London 2012, when Saina became India’s first Olympic medallist in badminton, winning bronze in women’s singles.
Saina Nehwal’s major awards and achievements (AI-generated graphic)
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 the same year but lost the final to Carolina Marin.During the Rio 2016 Olympics, she suffered her first major knee injury and it became an Achilles heel for her after that. Saina, though, made a stunning comeback to win a bronze at the 2017 World Championships and gold at the 2018 CWG.And on Monday, an international career spanning nearly two decades was officially brought to a close, drawing the curtain on a truly remarkable journey.
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