IMHO, judging from that final match I must say Carolina Marin is much fitter psychologically and physically than Saina. It begins to show at the end of the first set.
"No matter the loss..saina nehwal achieved a great feat..tremendous performance by an Indian..all credits to her ", Jwala Gutta tweeted.
I must say she should have capitalize the opportunity in the second game lead during mid game interval but she lost it... She is really mentally down and making lots of unforced errors. And the game 3 was completely given away .. Nevertheless, she played an excellent tournament here . Being 3rd seed, she already exceeded expectations to reach the finals of prestigious ALL ENGLAND tournament. She has defeated her long time rival Yihan on the way convincingly in 2 straight games. Hope she learns from her mistakes soon and come back to India open with a full bang.
Saina does not have as many shots in her repertoire. Makes it difficult to change the game around. It would be interesting to see Saina's win loss ratio in matches going to three sets.
Really disappointed with her loss. She deserves to win a 'major' after all these years, especially after all her contributions to badminton. I believe that she has played a major role in promoting and developing India into a badminton superpower. Sadly though, I agree with some of the people here that she needs to change something eg. better tactical strategies / new skill sets / stronger big match temperament etc. Contrary to what some may believe, she's not young anymore. In fact I cannot see anyone else in the top 50 who have been around longer than her or have more playing years than her (not even wang yihan, who's two years older). The younger generation (tai / Marin / ratchanok) has started to win majors and her same junior batch (Li XR / Wang SX) are way ahead in terms of majors and achievements. Additionally, an even younger generation (Sindhu / akane / nozomi etc) is already breaking records and will not make it easy. Hope that she can continue on this vein of form and capitalize on the poor form of the Chinese to win the WC this year.
Cheung, What do you think is Marin's weakness? Because the way I see it- Marin's style is very different from from rest of the female players. She plays almost like a man. What kind of strategy should one try against Marin? Good point about 3-setters. I think Wang Yihan is the best 3 set player in WS. She very rarely loses 3-setters.
Saina said about her loss .. "I just lost focus and began hurrying, which was not right," "Playing against top players anything can happen at any stage, and you can always get nervous at some point in time. That's what happened here," “I didn’t fight that well and I just made lots of small mistakes. The game went away from my hand, and Carolina was playing very well.” Marin said "This is quite amazing for me. I lost to her every time before, so to beat her like this, and in this tournament, is very special indeed," “The second set, when I was down 11-9 I heard my coach and then tried to focus on sticking to my game plan. I tried to keep the shuttle on court and make long rallies. I wanted to put pressure on her, to make it faster, more speed.” We have to give credit to carolina. She used Saina's nervousness clearly and capitalised the situation. Though Saina played multiple finals, this final is big in her lifetime. That may be the reason she became nervous. I understand that. Hope she overcomes that.
Jwala tweeted that? That's so nice of Jwala. She doesn't normally say pro-Saina words. You are are right - she can't be too unhappy with her All England performance. Since there are positives to take- first time she reaches finals of AE, first time she beats Wang Yihan. The only negative thing is that she lost in the finals for the first time to Marin. But she will get a chance for revenge in the India Open. We all hope she learns from her mistakes soon and come back to India open with a full bang. You are right - she should have capitalized the opportunity in the second game lead during mid game interval. You know - I sensed something was wrong even when she was leading in the second game. She was playing an insecure game. Marin played really well in Syed Modi India Open GPG too. But Saina played her natural aggressive game then because there was no pressure of a big tournament. That allowed her to win on that occasion. Here, I think the pressure got to her.
Yep . She might have said that because she changed her coach now. This is my personal opinion. May be she changed her character and started to becoming friendly to saina.
I agree with Saina. She lost focus. The pressure got to her. You know - it was 8-10 points before the second game interval. Marin was behind and looking nervous and her coach said something from the chair followed by "vamos vamos". That gave Marin the confidence to fight. I thought it was important that Marin lost the next 2 points. But she was lucky and won them instead. Her facial expression changed after that. On the other hand, Saina looked nervous almost the entire match. And her nervousness amplified when Marin started playing well. There is no easy ride at this level. Agree.
We all share your disappointment, djake. Yes, she deserves to win even more than what she has done. We hope she does. There is some good news. it looks like there is a good chance that she will become ranked #1 after the India Open SS if she even has a decent show. By redshuttle's calculations Saina should be number 1 by the end of India Open. .... But Now that she has lost, I wonder if Carolina can catch up. Perhaps Saina needs to reach the finals to reach the #1 rank.
good question and I don't have an answer yet. That's the difference between an amateur observer and an internationally experienced coach. Coaches pick up things real quick. Carolina's strong points are a lethal forecourt cross court netshot. The flight of the shuttle is superb. For a tall girl, she has got very good leg strength without the bulk. She is strong in her deep forehand corner and can dig out shots from that corner. She takes time to get into the feel of a match. I feel it is crucial not to let Marin get her rhythm in from the start to the end. You see in this match, Marin's shot making improved. Saina went for full power shots a bit early and made mistakes. This is where Marin came in and forced herself psychologically on the game. I am not sure at present but it looks like Carolina is the big match player. If the competition/match is slightly less exciting, she doesn't play as well. When the pressure is on for the big tournaments, her coach knows how to motivate her. This makes her very difficult as you don't know what to expect as an opponent in the big matches. I feel that Saina's smash lacks some variation. She hits hard, and then hard again. The angle of the smash doesn't seem to change much - she can't clip the shuttle down, she cannot do the quick light hops around the court. So Marin knows this and can adjust accordingly.
I have to admit that I did not account for CM's victory at AE. SN's #1 is no longer automatic. The situation is now this (don't hold me to it. I will check my math after they release the ranking next week): CM can't catch SN, unless CM advances all the way into the final of IO. If CM reaches the final and lost, SN needs to reach just QF to become #1. If CM wins the IO, SN needs to go all the way to the final (win or lose). Only fellow Indian players are on the way for SN to reach QF. But if CM reaches the final, only SN can prevent her from winning. This should make a rather interesting IO, especially for Indian fans.
In the 1st game, SN's smashes were very close to the lines or on the body and she won many points. In the 2nd game her smashes were totally different and within the retrieving zone of CM and she returned everything. SN was already exhausted in the 3rd game.
I agree with the quality of SN's smashes degrading after the first game. But generally speaking, I feel that if CM have some time, she will pressurize her opponent to death, because she has speed and precision and will attack on anything. So the choice for her opponent is to be very agressive so CM is not so pro-active (that is what SN did in the first game), or get your clear with perfect length and speed, with fast drops (that is what SJH did at GO). It will be interesting to see other players develops different tactics against her, now that she had proven her World title was no mistake.
Saina Nehwal takes positives from All England performance [video=youtube;mxyEpGoezIM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxyEpGoezIM[/video] HYDERABAD: A dream All England title might have slipped through her fingers but Saina Nehwal on Monday insisted on taking positives out of the prestigious tournament, saying her consistency and improvement in overall game will help her to do well in the season ahead. Olympic bronze medallist Saina's quest for becoming the first Indian woman to win the All England Championship ended in agony after she lost to Spain's Carolina Marin 21-16, 14-21, 7-21 in the summit clash on Sunday in Birmingham. "The first game was quite good. I started off very well. But I think she was also in good form and she gave me a tough time after that. Finally it is a game so obviously it would be challenging," Saina told reporters after returning home. "I am happy that I got some good results last year. Winning the China Open and then reaching the semifinals of the Super Series Finals. So there is a lot of consistency. "I'm world no. 3 and hopefully will be world no. 2 next week. There is a lot of improvement. So I am taking a lot of positives out of this tournament. Hopefully I will do well in future," said the girl from Hyderabad, who had earned a career best ranking of World No. 2 in December 2010. Source - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...-England-performance/articleshow/46504599.cms
I might be not a big fan of saina nehwal but i was hoping that she will win this All England title for her self, beside she deserve it after long waiting and working hard but also she play well in this tournament and the fact that she never lose from Marin, i said to myself waoo this is her best chance to win All England title one of the most prestigious title in badminton history, if she won this she will be one of the great badminton player, but when she lost to Caroline Marin, after the mid game interval in 3rd game i was so desperate and kind of upset ( i dont know why) because it just prove my judge to her maybe she just can not win the big one she just not a great player at all, dont get me wrong guys this is because i want her to win this so bad after her long waiting and hard working and with all of the expectation, maybe she just cant handle the pressure and expectation, but again a lose is always a good way to learn for the better future, i hope saina will win some big title later maybe 1 2 or 3 or even 5 years for now, because she deserve it.
Nice picture! Who is Jwala's new coach? Saina had recently developed this deceptive shot where where she pretends to smash but it actually drops near the net. I didn't see a single one of them in AE finals, but she used them quite successfully in the Syed Modi India Open GPG. In that match, Saina actually came from behind to win despite the fact that Marin was playing really well. This shows that Saina wasn't thinking clearly in the AE finals. Regarding Marin I think several thing allows her to be a big match player. First, Marin has a true fighter mentality. Also, Saina is somewhat handicapped in terms of the pressure of expectations in her country. Spain has so many sporting heroes that even if Marin doesn't win, it does not put that extra load on her. The fact that CM has already won a "big one" like the world title also helps release the pressure. Ya, this IOSS will be interesting.
