The inaugural $1 million Indian Badminton League (IBL) proved to be a box-office hit. The galaxy of stars from the badminton world (without the ones from China and Japan) added tremendous lustre to the meet and the players dished out a sumptuous fare for the fans. Saina Nehwal was the creme de la creme of the lot. A Magnificent Seven (seven wins out of seven) was her contribution as Hyderabad Hotshots sizzled all the way.
There were no cheerleaders unlike the Indian Premier League, but the IBL provided cheers all the way. Saina firmly believes the IBL is a great thing to happen to badminton. “If you see the results, there is a lot of improvement by the Indian players, specially Kidambi Srikkanth. He really played well. I hope that more talented players emerge from India,” she said.
Saina said she did not expect her team to win the title. “We are the champions! We did not expect to win in the first edition itself.”
Saina firmly believes that the IBL will catch up with the IPL. “No one expected IBL to be be successful. It is wrong to compare it with the IPL. It is not right at this point of time because IPL is a great thing. We want to try to make IBL big, but for the first time, it is not easy. Hopefully, in coming years, it will catch up with the IPL.”
She is all the more happy because of the crowd response. “When something new starts, there could be some glitches. But I was really surprised to see a good crowd turn up for the matches in Mumbai, Delhi, Lucknow. A lot of people came to cheer us up. A lot of kids came and cheered for me. It is really great to see the younger generation coming to badminton. We have not seen such big crowds during the nationals. Big-time badminton has arrived in India. The players were doing well and this small encouragement was required and it came at the right time because of the IBL,” she said.
Being a vital cog of her team, Saina did have some jitters when there was a possibility of her playing mixed doubles in case Ajay Jayaram had lost his singles match in the final.
“I’m a singles player. Frankly speaking, I was little scared of playing the match because Pia (Zebadiah Bernadeth) and (Markis) Kido are world No 9. It was good that we pulled it off in the second men’s singles,” she said. Saina was the only player to win all seven matches. This form might help her regain her winning formula in the Super Series tournaments.
“It is not easy to win a Super Series title. I will try my best. Of course, it is not easy to win seven matches in a row. I was very focused and confident of pulling off matches. But with opponents like Tai Tzu Ying, Juliane Schenk, PV Sindhu, I never thought I would win seven matches. But I’m playing very well and getting back my rhythm. I just hope to end the year on a good note, winning some titles,” she said.
Saina expects Chinese players to play in the IBL next year. “It would be good and it would be good for them also. Finally, it is their decision. And anyway, most of the top players are playing so I have no issues with the Chinese playing or not. But the foreign players are really happy because of the amount of money that has come in,” she said. “Next year, it will be much tougher and there will be many more singles players coming in. There will be a lot of pressure on you but at same time, it will help me as I will play with a lot of top players,” she concluded.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Sport / by N. Jagannath Das – Hyderabad / September 02nd, 2013