Nehwal completes her destiny

Saina Nehwal, the first Indian woman to win a Super Series tournament, became the first to win a Commonwealth gold medal on Thursday, but had to save a fraught match point to do it.

The great home favourite made the last match of the tournament the most dramatic, surviving by about one inch near the end of the second game in a 19-21, 23-21, 21-13 victory over the second seeded Wong Mew Choo.

The Malaysian had nearly beaten the Hyderabad heroine in the team event six days previously, and would have done so in straight games this time had Nehwal’s kill at the net at 20-21 travelled a fraction further.

Instead it landed plumb on the baseline.

This narrowest of survivals roused the crowd to even higher decibel levels, injected Nehwal with fresh adrenaline, and brought a feeling that this title, here in India, was one that she really was meant to win.

“I have to focus on the smaller things, do what I have to do, and not get affected by expectations,” Nehwal said. But it was not until the moment of crisis that she did that as well as she could.

That was partly because Wong once again fashioned the drop-shot, net shot, lift, pattern which brought Nehwal forwards and backwards, making her work hard and tempting her to try smashes from difficult positions.

Nehwal had the dilemma of either playing this cat-and-mouse form of badminton until there was an opening, or risking mistakes by attempting to force the issue.

It took her a long time to unravel this puzzle and Wong led by 15-11, 19-15, and 20-17 in the first game, but only winning it with an overhead drop which took a lucky net cord. Nehwal might have avoided trouble had Wong’s high clear been called out and given the favourite an 18-15 lead in the second game.

But it was called in and the distraction was compounded when the giant video replay suggested it might well have been out.

This persuaded her to take a chance on attack at match point down, her smash setting up the slightest chance of a kill. She gambled bravely on taking it and won by the smallest of margins.

NEW DELHI, AFP