A day before the Nationals, Saina remembers

Jamshedpur, 1 February 05:

COLD morning. We've woken into grey skies and a constant drizzle. After the whole of yesterday spent passing through patches of green in a dusty brown Andhra Pradesh landscape, waking up in cloudy Orissa was a surprise…

But the drizzle doesn't matter if you're looking at it through the window of a fast-moving train. The Andhra and Karnataka teams were huddled close by, in the same compartment of the Alappey-Dhanbad Express that was taking them to the National Badminton Championships in Jamshedpur.

Quite a surprise, seeing Saina Nehwal with the Andhra team. Most of the top contenders had already reached Jamshedpur for the inter-state matches… but Saina wasn't playing the inter-state; she's in the 10th standard and missing most of the National-level tournaments to concentrate on her studies. But no way, of course, that she can afford to miss the Nationals in Jamshedpur.

She is wrapped up in a grey pullover, looking quite removed from all the noise the Andhra players were making… her parents are from Haryana - her mother was sitting close by - and I'm not sure she understands Telugu.

Anyway… going into the Nationals, it looks like Saina is the only serious obstacle to Aparna Popat's quest for an unprecedented eight consecutive National singles titles. She's the hottest prospect on the horizon; at 14, she is one of the top players in the country. She's had a string of impressive results abroad, so not many will be surprised if she manages to upset Aparna this time.

The season topper was the team silver at the Commonwealth Championships in Bendigo, Australia. They narrowly lost the final to Malaysia, 3-2, after beating South Africa, New Zealand, England and Singapore on the way. They lost the final rubber, the mixed doubles, after leading 11-9 in the third game. In an earlier match, against England, the tie went into the last match, the girls doubles. They lost the first game and trailed 0-8 in the second. Then they fought back, won the game without conceding another point, and took the third game 15-13.
Saina had a particularly good tournament, winning all her matches and conceding less than five points in each game.

Lord, it's awfully cold on this train, and I didn't even bring my sweater. The train is rumbling past thatched huts, villagers whose faces we can't judge, the odd moment of beauty in a river or pond…

She's been terribly busy the last year. After the exams in April, she attended the Korea camp, went to Korea for the Junior ABC in July, came back for a tournament in Pune, Bangalore, then to Singapore, back for a one-month camp for the World Jr Championships, then the Junior Nationals in Goa, then the Commonwealth…

In the Jr ABC, India lost the quarters to Korea. In the open singles, she lost in three games to the top seed. After that was the World Championships, where the team played five rounds. They beat Holland, lost to Chinese Taipei, lost to Hong Kong China, beat Slovenia… and ended 11th. Early in the year, she had played the Uber Cup too, making history as the youngest member of the team.

So it's been an awful lot of matches, and the initiation into top-level badminton has begun early.

"What do you think of the Chinese?" I ask.
"They're very fast, good movement, good power. Lots of stamina."
After a pause: "We need good training, more workouts. The Chinese don't have studies, just practise… we have to study… so in holidays we can have three sessions, with more speed training. After playing they run for two hours. To match up to their speed we should also do that. Otherwise it's very difficult."

"What's your training like?"
"Morning I play 6 to 8.30. Then 3 to 7.30. Six-seven hours everyday. Good training. In the last Nationals I lost 11-5 to Aparna. This year I'm playing very well. Last year I beat Trupti, Meenakshi… everybody except Aparna."

"You lost to Aparna in the last Nationals, didn't you? What do you think of her?"
"Aparna is fast… I've never played too much against her. And I was a bit scared of her too, because she's a senior. Otherwise I was leading 4-0, 5-0 in both games. Then she started playing crosscourt drops and dribble - she's got a good dribble, and good attacking shots, smashes and all.
"Otherwise I can match her. It's the difference between strokes, nothing else. Because she's senior. This year I prepared well, let's see. And my ranking is also low, I'm No. 25 now. Don't know where I'll be. Maybe I'll meet her in the quarters or semis. Otherwise I'll be in Trupti's half."

She's got a style of talking that is all clipped sentences. Quiet voice, almost a whisper, I have to strain against the din of the train and her team mates. What else can I ask?

"Anand Pawar went to Indonesia for a camp… do you have any such plans?"
"Going out is good, but working hard here also makes more… there's no difference. I'm playing well here also… same thing, no difference. There you do more… explosive and everything. But if you want to you can do it anywhere."

I haven't heard this before. And yet, it's such a simple, irrefutable piece of logic. I leave her with her mother and headphones, and head back to look out the window, and wonder what Jamshedpur has in store for her.