Actually Meghna's face in the ads looked somewhat familiar. After seeing this video - I remembered a little. She was in IBL and possibly in a season of PBL as well. My bad memory. And it also has to do with the fact that I usually don't pay much attention to doubles and especially WD. BTW, TTY in Saree is nice to see.
Meghana is sweet . Woahh TTY looks cute in saree. Btw who's the Asian in green saree? She looks cute too
I am not sure. I am guessing that the east-asian looking woman is someone with TTY and the other south-asian/indian looking woman is someone with Meghana. But it's just a guess.
OK, I want to add few names to the list of potential prospects for Paris after watching the BAI trials. We talked about Samiya and Tasnim in WS. I want to add Malvika Bansod and Aditi Bhatt to the list. Especially Malvika. She won all her matches if I am not mistaken. She beat Aditi, Tasnim, Samiya, Asmita and other strong opponents. I think only Kanika Kanwal managed to take a game off her. Her foot-movement and court coverage reminds me a little of Carolina Marin. And like Carolina she is leftie too. What's more - she comes from a really small training facility. Very praiseworthy. And in MS, I would add Kiran George to the list after his win in the trials.
I watched some of her matches. She has an excellent footwork and she even defeated Ashmitha Chaliha?. She is 18 now. In 3 years , she will be more matured. Wanna see her matches more
Both Malvika and Aditi beat Asmita Chaliha, and that too in straight games. Malvika beat her very easily with score like 21-11 21-12. This is surprising because Asmita is currently #3 ranked Indian in BWF. Even #4 Mugdha did not do well in BAI trials. From what I saw in BAI trials (I saw about 7-8 matches in WS) - Malvika has the best footwork and Samiya has the best strokes. Tasnim and Aditi have good all-round game. Given their young ages, all four of them are very likely to be in top 50 in a few years. The question is can any of them challenge Sindhu and Saina for Paris.
Bansod reminded me of Okuhara, she played really well even though she is not from one of the big ones.
Saina , i don't know whether she will be able to beat youngsters when she is 34. I think current Malvika can drag her to 3 games. For Sindhu, she is a beast now. She struggles against deceptive players a little. Hope somebody first defeat Sindhu and Saina before taking their steps towards foreign players.
Playing olympics at 34 is certainly not unheard of. Tine Baun became #1 at age 32 or so. I don't know if Saina will continue till Paris or retire before that. I think she will at least target the next Asian Games and possibly even Paris. I was thinking more of 2-3 of years from now. I am pretty confident current Sindhu will easily beat current Malvika. But then again, Sindhu unexpectedly lost to Ruthvika in South Asian games final. So you never know. And if Saina does retire before Paris, then there will be a vacant spot and I hope someone fills it up.
I have no idea why you are so pessimistic about Saina. IMO the spot is not vacant until she officially retires. May be Saina's performance in the past 1-2 year hasn't been that good, but she is still a proven player. Not only is she the most successful player till now in SS/WT300+ events, but she also has 1 olympic medal, 2 WC medals, 1 individual AG medal. Only Sindhu has better record in those. She also has 2 CWG individual gold medals which not even Sindhu has. Just last time she won gold in CWG by beating Sindhu no less. So to write her off based on 1 bad year is just silly. I don't know if she can make it to Paris, but she can certainly make it to next AG and CWG. Even making it to Paris isn't impossible. Lee Chong Wei won Silver in Rio at near the age of 34. Tine Baun became #1 ranked player and won all england at near age 34 in 2013. It can be said that Tine Baun's Career peak came at near age 34. So for Saina to make it to Paris is quite possible unless she gets injured or retires.
I am seeing neither desire nor effort from Saina. I'd be happy to be proven wrong though. Seems you have more desire than Saina herself.
Retiring means no endorsements. Even if she tries to up her game, she will have a tendency to get injured. The only realistic hope would be to lose significant weight (which is easy) and to maintain it at least over her playing career (which would be a Herculean challenge). Difficult but not impossible.
So while watching the Asian Games this thread came to my mind. I got mixed feelings from Badminton. First of all why is Srikanth playing in the singles and not Lakshya? Isn't Lakshya higher ranked than Srikanth? I like Srikanth, but I am not sure if he can get back his prime form anytime before Paris. At this moment Prannoy and Lakshhya look like the best bet for MS for me. Sindhu has a tough match against HBJ tomorrow. Past 1 year or so she really hasn't been that impressive. I hope she gets a medal here to get back her confidence. Chirag/Satwik have looked good. I sure hope they win a medal. I am hoping we can put up a good show in badminton like we did in last year's CWG. Overall, I am surprised at how well India is doing at the Asian Games. Looks like our country is slowly becoming a sporting nation(or multi-sport event nation). India already has the highest ever medals and highest ever golds in AG and still around 4 days to go. Looks like we will really cross that 100 medal mark. Also in terms of ranking we are currently at #4 and we will probably maintain that spot till the end. Many great moments were there. Parul Chaudhary's overtaking run at the last moment was great. So was Neeraj Chopra and Kishore Jena winning gold and silver respectively in the same event. The Mukherjees beating Chinese world champions in Table Tennis was great. Too bad they had to settle for bronze despite putting a decent fight in the semis. India got so many medals in Shooting and Athletics. We are also doing pretty good in Archery - especially compound Archery where we are regularly beating the SKoreans. Compound Archery should be there in the Olympics. Hopefully, S Ghosal will win an individual gold in squash. And hopefully more gold medals will come from Kabaddi, Hockey, Cricket etc. Chess can deliver a few medals too - although given how strong our chess team is, I was expecting a bit more. And Wrestling is about to start so we will likely get a lot of medals from there. Boxing was OK. But weightlifting was a bit disappointing. Why were so few weightlifters send? So, last time 70 medals from AG and 7 medals in the Olympics. So, if we win 100 medals this time does it mean we can win 10 medals in Olympics this time?
OK just based on what I saw in the WC and AG, Chirag-Satwik are probably our best bet for a gold. And unless they get injured or some horribly unfair draw, I see them winning a medal of some colour in Paris. It is unfortunate that Prannoy was not fully fit in both these events - otherwise he could have done even better. I am still not sure why Lakshya was not playing in MS. The WS is a concern though. Sindhu has to regain her prime form. But more importantly, I still don't see a good enough 2nd WS player. Either Saina has to recover fully from injury and get back to form OR one of these youngsters have to improve significantly. For WD I can only hope that Gopichand's daughter's pair improve more and more to become a formidable pair who can challenge for a medal. MD:Chirag-Satwik MS: Prannoy, Lakshya WS: Sindhu, ? WD: possibly Gayatri-Trisha But once again, I am surprised at how good India is doing in AG. 95 medals already. And specially impressed by the whole compound archery team.
