On Thursday Saina Nehwal became first Indian to reach in an Olympics badminton semifinal. It took her thirty nine minutes to create her own bit of history. Winning semifinal will not be an easy task for her as she will be playing world No. 1 Chinese Yihan Wang who has got the better of her in their five last encounters.
In their previous five encounters, Saina has never been able to blow her away. The two last met in January this year at the Malaysian Open where Saina lost 15-21, 16-21. In two of the three encounters in 2011, Saina managed to stretch Wang to three sets but could never alter the end result.
With already 21 individual titles to her name, Wang is known in the badminton circuit for not giving an inch to her opponents. Nehwal has yet to figure how to unravel that particular riddle.
Saina was realistic about her chances in the semis without sounding overtly confident. "It's very, very difficult as the Chinese are strong opponents. We will both be under the pressure of expectations but I am not thinking about all that."
But then this is a different Nehwal from the one that turned out at Beijing, far different. She walked out on court like she owned it, like she belonged.
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