Face-off between star, rising one on hold as Sindhu exits early
Much of the disappointment of PV Sindhu’s 49-minute 21-16, 15-21, 14-21 loss to Taipei’s Hsu Ya Ching at the Indonesia Open centred around how it had killed the chance of a Sindhu-Saina Nehwal face-off on the big stage. The 19-year-old’s opening round exit on Wednesday is seen as a dampener to an all-India rivalry that pits the country’s top two shuttlers in a high-stakes game, a non-starter to a bloodfight fans are baying for.
Saina Nehwal was clinical in a regulation 21-16, 21-18 win over Thai Nichaon Jindapon. So, the Istora Gelora Bung Karno in Jakarta, a cauldron that fills up with close to 10,000 highly voluble Indonesians passionate about badminton, was denied the spicy Indian skirmish this time round.
But not for long
PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal will return to the same venue at Jakarta in two months’ time. As such, both their respective seasons this year are geared towards the 10-16 August World Championships, a tournament which despite its annual regularity, can ignite a spark that livens up the rivalry between India’s very best.
A niggling pain in the arch of her foot had begun to bother Sindhu after the last World Championships in 2014. She picked her only title at Macau — a lower tier GP Gold event on the last day of the last season, and has spent most of this one tending to what she’d earlier believed was just a muscle moan that blew up into a navicular stress fracture. It aggravated to an incomplete crack on the midfoot, which got diagnosed after an X-ray post the nationals.
For a month, Sindhu was restricted to fiddling with a Swiss ball and practicing strokes standing as any running, sprinting, lunging or hopping would’ve worsened her condition as she moved around the court thumping her weight on the left- foot arch. The expected recovery period is 8-12 weeks.
“A callus has formed on the bone now, so that signals recovery. Though coach Gopichand doesnt want her to push and the plan is she should be ready for the Worlds,” Sindhu’s father PV Ramana says. Her comeback in April for the Asian Championships and her last outing — prior to Indonesia — at Australia were both three-set losses to the top Chinese Xuerui Li and Yihan Wang, and Ramana, a former international spiker, believes the ailment still makes Sindhu tentative around the 1-hour-mark in matches.
“She’s not going all out to close matches beyond an hour because the fear of aggravation is there. It will be there till she wins a big match, but we are not overtly concerned. At the Worlds she’ll be ready,” he adds.
Strangely, the navicular bone affected is not on the right foot which is mostly the case owing to retrieving shuttles when lunging laterally. It was finally an X-ray in late January that pointed to the hint of the crack. “The left foot took us by surprise because it’s not usual. So it took us time to detect it though she’d feel pain occasionally. But now there’s definite recovery,” he assures.
A month’s further healing and then a Grand Prix at Taipei, will pave the way for the World Championships in August.
