Recapping Saina Nehwal's Bronze winning heroics at London 2012

The Indian Badminton team has been one of the up and coming powers in the world in the last few years, thanks in main to the exploits of Saina Nehwal, the woman who has taken the sport to the next level in India.

Though the sport isn’t yet as popular as Cricket in India, Nehwal is a modern-day icon, whose presense has encouraged a lot of children, especially young girls, to take up the sport seriously.

The only Indian woman to ever have reached the top of the world rankings, Saina is also one of the few to have won a medal at each of the BWF’s major individual events and has been a consistent figure among the top ten players in the world.

In addition to her exploits on the Badminton circuit, she is also the only Indian ever to have won an Olympic medal, when she brought home the Bronze medal in 2012.

The other Indians also did well at the London Games, including the women’s doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponappa, who just lost out on a Bronze medal, after putting in a brilliant run of performances.

However, the nation’s hopes were firmly resting on Nehwal’s shoulders and she made sure she doesn’t disappoint.

Finishing off her group stage engagements without breaking a sweat, the shuttler then took on Yao Jie of Japan in her next game, winning it comfortably in straight games.

Her next match in the quarter-finals saw her go up against Danish stalwart, Tine Baun, a potentially dangerous opponent, but Saina negotiated the danger perfectly, coming through in a well-fought match 21-15, 22-20.

Both these matches gave her a lot of confidence, as she had fallen at the quarter-final stage in Beijing in 2008, and she had reached the semi-finals without suffering a lot, and in an impressive fashion.

She was drawn against Wang Yihan in the semi-finals and despite putting up a tough fight, Saina went down to the Chinese 13-21, 13-21 in straight sets, ruling her out of contention for a Gold or a Silver medal.

A crushing defeat it was, but she did not let the loss demoralize her, as she used the loss as a motivating factor for her Bronze medal match, which was against another Chinese shuttler, Wang Xin.

Though she had a 2-3 win-loss record against Xin, Nehwal did not let that affect her, and approached the match with full intentions of returning with a medal for the country, something that had never happened before in history.

The match itself saw the Indian trail the woman from China continuously in the first game, as despite her best efforts, Wang Xin had the advantage, and didn’t look like she would be giving it away easily.

However, the one aspect of sport, that no one reallly likes, struck to haunt Wang Xin just as she was about to clinch the first game. With 3 game points in her hand, she twisted her ankle, while attempting a down-the-line winner, crumpling to the court in pain.

Though she got treatment immediately on the court on her left foot, she looked in considerable pain. However, she came back to resume the match, albeit with a heavily bandaged left ankle.

Wang completed the formalities and secured the first game, but looked very uncomfortable while she was playing and fell down while attempting a return, suffering another blow to the ankle.

Following examination by doctors, it was clear that the Chinese shuttler was in no position to resume action and she withdrew from the match, handing the medal to Saina Nehwal.

Now, getting a medal after your opponent went down due to injury isn’t really the greatest thing, but at the end of the day, Saina had won the country a medal in Badminton, something that had never happened before.

Her face didn’t give a hint of a smile, out of respect to her opponent, but what Nehwal achieved was a first in Indian Olympic history, and established her as a force to be reckoned with.

Saina Nehwal’s Olympic exploits inspired many across the nation to take up Badminton seriously, and if you are one of them, visit the#RiseAtRio themed Flipkart store and start your Badminton journey today!