Saina Nehwal's performance analysis in 2012

Last Sunday, many Indian Badminton fans were disappointed when Saina was beaten in final of the French Open. Still, Saina improved her BWF ranking points to 82111.7, which didn’t affect her ranking, but she came closer to the second spot.

2012 year review for Saina Nehwal:

Year 2012 has been the best year in Saina Nehwal’s career. After a disappointing last year, where she wasn’t able to win a single Super series title, this year she won two BWF Super Series Premiere (Indonesia and Denmark) and two Grand Prix Gold titles (Swiss and Thailand) along with an Olympic bronze medal. Saina started this year at 4^th ranking, but a poor performance in the first four Super Series, where she failed to qualify, led her ranking to drop to 5^th. She came back strongly and won back-to-back titles in Thailand and Indonesia. She continued her good form and won a bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics. After the Olympics, she took a two-and-a-half month break and didn’t participate in 3 Super Series’. Winning Denmark open and runner-up in the French Open put Saina back in driving seat.

Saina leads 2012 ranking table:

Saina has performed well compared to all her top four opponents in this year. She has won 2 Super Series Premiere, while her competitor Wang Yihan, Li Xuerui and Wang Shixian won 1 Super Series Premiere title each.

Points of top 5 players in the year 2012:

Wang Yihan	79902.7
Li Xuerui	82106.5
Saina Nehwal	82111.7
Wang Xin	45343.7
Wang Shixian	63272.1

In 2012, Saina Nehwal is leading the table and if she continues her good performance in the next 3 Super Series, she has a chance to top the BWF ranking and achieve her career best ranking. Wang Yihan and Li Xuerui are very close to Saina and the upcoming events will be surely be the decider for the rankings. Wang Xin had a great year, but due to injuries at the Olympics, she missed many tournaments after that and shifted down in the ranking; she has moved from second place to the fourth.

Chance for Saina Nehwal to top the ranking:

Saina Nehwal is currently at No.3 in the BWF world ranking. Three BWF Super Series events still left in this year – Hong Kong, China and Super Series Masters. Both Yihan and Xuerui are defending their points in the China Super Series, while Saina has everything to gain by performing well in this tournament. Li Xuerui is just 1645 points ahead of Saina. Excluding Saina, all the top 5 have achieved first spot in their careers. Unfortunately, Saina reached the 2^nd spot in 2010 but missed the top spot due to poor performances in 2011 that took her ranking down to 5^th. If Saina wins two out of three, or qualifies in all the finals, then depending on others’ performances, she has a bright chance to move up in ranking table.