Did Food Poisoning Cost Saina Nehwal Australian Open Title?
World No. 1 and defending champion Saina Nehwal crashed out of the $750,000 Australian Open Superseries after losing her quarter-final clash to Chinese Shixian Wang.
- Vimal Mohan
- Updated: May 30, 2015 06:52 PM IST
World No. 1 and defending champion Saina Nehwal was beaten by former top ranked Chinese opponent Shixian Wang in just over 40 minutes. Many experts are seeing this loss of Saina as a difficult Chinese challenge against the Indian Olympic medallist. But there seems to be another story for Saina's defeat. There were cuisine related reasons which impacted Saina's game on the court.(Saina Knocked Out of Australian Open)
Last year defending champion Saina beat Shixian in the semifinals of the same tournament. She beat Carolina Marin of Spain in the final to win Australian Open in 2014. Before Saina's defeat in Sydney, the Hyderabadi star had a record of 6-5 against Shixian. Of course, the scoreline has now become even between the two. But Saina's coach Vimal Kumar has said that after the pre-quarter-final match Saina ate dinner at an Indian restaurant in Sydney that caused food poisoning. Besides, Vimal Kumar himself could not travel with Saina, adding to the woes of the world number one Hyderabadi. Vimal Kumar said that he was not well and hence was unable to travel with the defending Australian Open champion.
Saina is apparently ready for the Indonesian Open Super Series challenge. Incidentally, there is a possibility of Saina Nehwal facing compatriot PV Sindhu in the second round in Jakarta. This will create a huge amount of interest amongst Indian fans and in the badminton circuit across the world.
World number one Saina has 82342 points in Badminton World Ranking while Olympic Champion Xuerui Li has 80177. After this loss Saina is bound to lose some important points in the rankings. Coach Vimal says that Saina will have another ten weeks or so to prepare for the World Championships which is going to be held in Jakarta itself. Vimal says that though the tournament will not be an easy outing as all the participants are supposed to be tough, he feels that Saina has enough time to prepare for the top tournament where she hasn't gone past the quarter-final round.