Saina Nehwal registered a resounding 21-19, 21-6 victory against her long-time nemesis in the All England quarters. (Source: File)

A string of early body-line smashes were Saina Nehwal’s opening statements of intent. However it was her brilliant follow-up to this aggressive ploy – the wily cross-court placements of the shuttle that displayed her tactical nous and harried her opponent helping the Indian ace turn the tables on a rival who’s stood in her path like the daunting wall of China.

Saina Nehwal overturned a massive 1-8 career win-loss count that she had piled up against Chinese Olympic silver medallist and former world champion Yihan Wang, to register a resounding 21-19, 21-6 victory against her long-time nemesis in the quarterfinals of the All England championships Premier Super Series event late on Friday. She marched into the semifinals where she meets another towering Chinese Sun Yu on Saturday.

With this win, Nehwal equalled her best showing at the Birmingham biggie, a prestigious event of the badminton circuit, which holds great sentiment for Indians who’ve watched Prakash Padukone (1980) and P Gopichand (2001) crowned champions in the past. The 24-year-old who has made the semis previously in 2010, however secured a statement-making victory against the Chinese Yihan who she has most struggled to beat in her career.

Having fallen short against Yihan repeatedly in the past few years, the win on Friday was a strategic triumph for the Indian against an arch rival who seemed to have enjoyed a suffocating vice-like grip on Nehwal, handing her some of the most bruising losses of her career. On Friday, Saina wasn’t just ready to change the script, she’d come armed with a neat bound plan against her Chinese rival.

Moving lithely, one of the first things Saina Nehwal ensured was that she wouldn’t allow Yihan to run away with leads, or dictate the pace of the play. Yihan was to find out deep into the second game that her desperate attempt to spike the sheer pace of hitting was hardly bothering the Indian who looked fit and spry through the length of the contest.

It was early in the match at 4-6 and 5-6 that Nehwal took the attack right into the heart of Yihan’s defence, smashing into the Chinese girl’s torso and announcing her brutal resolve to now cower.

A little peek into the past of this rivalry points to entire games where Yihan has dominated Nehwal to such an extent that contests have looked lop-sided. The Olympic semis and Games 2 and 3 of the Asian Games quarterfinal at Incheon come to mind where Yihan had swiftly changed gears and over-run Nehwal into submission. While Nehwal’s court movements were one part of the problem then, it was also the absence of a counter when faced with such a barrage of steep shots and frustrating drops that had proved to be Nehwal’s undoing.

On Friday, Nehwal would keep up with the frenetic pace that Yihan couldn’t manipulate to her own advantage and unleash precise crosscourt retorts that gave Nehwal control over the proceedings. There were the angular net crosscourts that had Yihan scrambling on her forecourt right corner and there were the down-the-line smashes as Nehwal kept pushing her back in scrambles.

Chinese coach Chen Jin was furiously penning down points in his diary and attempting to guide his ward, who tried a comeback from 19-16 down to narrow the gap to 20-19. However, Yihan clearly hustled by Nehwal’s precise tactics would hit long and not be allowed any succour.

Nehwal’s enjoyed first-set leads over Yihan before; however it was in the second set that she drove the knife in deeper sprinting to a 8-0 lead in no time, this time cutting down on the spit-smashes but opening up her armoury for an all-court exhibition of strokes. Yihan’s first instinct is always to attack right back, however her ploy to hike the pace of play met with steely eyes from Nehwal who defended with ease and found winners of her own.

The early lead was too much of a shock for Yihan who was dished out the sort of brutal assault she packs in for her opponents, as Saina Nehwal kept sustained pressure on her, not allowing her a toe-hold going onto win in 39 minutes and march into the Last Four.

Nehwal meets another Chinese Sun Yu, a younger compatriot of Yihan’s though, another towering challenger at 6’1”. Sun Yu, not as sharp in her strokes as Yihan Wang, is however a long rally player. Nehwal has played a marathon 75-minute first-round against the teenaged Chinese, ranked 18, when she won the Australian Open. But the Indian will need to be prepared for an attritional battle, not a style of play she’s unused to having prevailed in many long matches in her career.

It might well be Nehwal’s best shot at an All England title yet, given that the top 3 Chinese have all lost. However, world champion Carolina Marin, and Taipei’s Tai Tzu Ying – easily the most-improved player on the circuit with a wildly deceptive game and unconventional strokes will battle it out in the other semifinal. Should Nehwal get past Sun Yu, the Indian ace who turns 25 in 10 days might come up against the new crop of challengers in international badminton, who though not Chinese have shown the dogged brain and well-rounded games that are required of champions in the past one year.

Tai Tzu (4-5 head-to-head) has beaten Nehwal the last two times they met and though the Indian has always had it easy against the spunky but highly mercurial Spaniard Marin (3-0), the European holds the bragging rights of being the World Champion.

Nehwal’s latest boast however, is perhaps the biggest obstacle she’s surmounted in her career: beating Yihan Wang, after going down to her 9 times, by staying resilient.

Her repeated losses to her were one reason why Nehwal had sought to move base to Bangalore from Hyderabad, looking for fresher ideas to counter the Chinese 27-year-old. Vimal Kumar who had been working on her court movement, had added layers of nuanced strokeplay to her arsenal, including the all-important cross-courts on forehand and back hand that have lent her erstwhile game (from aggressive smashing to stamina-based long rallies) yet another dimension. The tactical win should please her no end, as she finally exorcised her career’s biggest demon.