She may be one of the world’s most celebrated badminton players, but when Saina Nehwal was little, everyone knew her as Steffi, a nickname her mother gave her. Just two years before she was born in Hisar, Haryana, tennis champ Steffi Graf had become the only player in the world to achieve the Golden Slam (winning four Grand Slam titles and the Olympic gold medal in a single year). Back then, television viewers could rattle off the names of all the top tennis players: Boris Becker, Monica Seles, Pete Sampras, Martina Navratilova, Andre Agassi and Graf. But badminton? We played it in school and in our backyards. We knew Prakash Padukone, but we rarely watched any matches. That was until Saina Nehwal burst onto the court and almost single-handedly popularised the sport we’d all taken for granted.
ARMY OF ONE
The sport that now defines her life didn’t always come naturally to her. At nine, Nehwal told her mother she found badminton difficult. Usha Nehwal’s reply was brief and emphatic: “You can win an Olympic medal.” Tiger mum-level pressure notwithstanding, over the next two decades Nehwal soared into the spotlight with a series of firsts. In 2006, she became the first Indian woman to win a four-star badminton tournament. In 2008, she entered the top 10 badminton ranking. In 2015, she won the World No. 1 ranking and became the first Indian woman to achieve this feat. And in 2012, her mother had an opportunity to say, “I told you so” when Nehwal became the first Indian badminton player to win a medal (bronze) at the London Olympics. She still drives her ‘lucky’ BMW X6 that she was gifted when she won this medal.
She talks softly, seriously, but smiles frequently. As we speak, Nehwal likens her role of a national sports icon to a soldier working tirelessly for his or her country. But she’s more general than infantry, and she’s certainly led a successful revolution. It’s been 20 years since she won her first earnings, a humble five-hundred rupees at a district tournament in Tamil Nadu. Today, this self-made champion is one of India’s top-paid athletes. There might be newer stars on the court—the younger PV Sindhu outranks and out-earns her now—but Nehwal’s legacy in sporting history is sealed as the pioneer. She is, after all, the key reason the racquet sport escalated in popularity.
LIKE A GIRL
Every once in a while, her Twitter feed makes people see red when she expresses a controversial opinion. But Nehwal’s biggest contribution to sport and feminism is that she convinced an entire generation of girls that with hard work and determination, they could be champions too. “Whatever Saina’s ranking, whatever her form in an event, if there is one quality that has stayed constant and marked her career over a decade, it is her ability to keep competing till the final point is won or lost,” explains Sharda Ugra, senior editor at ESPN India and ESPNcricinfo.
Watching a teenage girl play to win in an international arena wasn’t something India had ever seen before. When I ask her about being a role model to so many, she underplays the impact of her success: “I think they watched me play and thought, ‘If Saina can do it, I can do it’.” Nehwal was the girl next door who went on to win big and gave young women a new dream while teaching them to pick themselves up after a loss and keep fighting.
BRING IT ON
This year is an important one for Nehwal. She’s on the cover of Vogue India, she turns 30 in March and, if all goes well, she will participate in her fourth Olympic Games in July. Later, in November, a biopic starring Parineeti Chopra and directed by Amole Gupte will make it to the big screen. Thus far, Hindi cinema’s tryst with badminton has been limited to inane musical interludes like ‘Dhal gaya din’ in Humjoli (1970). Here’s hoping her story inspires them to do better. She says the film is largely set in the year she earned the World No. 1 ranking. But Nehwal understands that her story, and the on-court love story that nests within it, will have to be told with “a little Bollywood style” for audiences to connect.
Last December, Nehwal celebrated her first wedding anniversary with her husband and one of her oldest besties, fellow badminton player Parupalli Kashyap. Apart from the friendly competitiveness while playing video games like PUBG and Fruit Ninja with their friends and fellow badminton players B Sai Praneeth and Gurusai Dutt, or card games such as Monopoly and Uno on flights, sport is the defining aspect of the couple’s life right now. Currently, they’re doing what athletes do best—spending all their time getting ready for the most important game of their life. “We’ll have lots of time to talk about other stuff later,” she says. Let’s not forget, it was sport that brought the two together: “He knows my tensions, my irritations… which have increased in recent years because of losses and injuries on court,” she says. “He can understand exactly what I’m going through just by looking at my face.”
BATTLE GROUND
The expectations are high. Over the past decade, her body has weathered many injuries: shoulder, ankle, hip, knee, wrist. “I don’t think there’s any part of my body that’s not been injured,” she says. “The shuttle can come anywhere. The difficult part is movement, not playing the game,” says Nehwal. In the run-up to the Olympics, she’s grappling with a foot injury. She has been experimenting with wearing insoles in a larger shoe size to compensate for her small feet and to recalibrate the biomechanics of her body. “Some players are blessed not to have injuries. Some just have to fight it out,” she says. It’s been exactly a decade since her magical run in 2010, when she won all five super series—and we’re still rooting for her. After all, she’s still got lots of fight left in her.
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