July 15: After the world championship, Saina Nehwal will feature in the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in October. Obviously, playing in front of home crowd is always an advantage. There is still time for the Delhi Games and the Asian Games for which I will work hard,” she said.
National chief coach Pullela Gopichand was surprised as well. It is very delightful that Saina has become World No. 2. At the same time, I am surprised with the rapid progress of things. It is all happening too quickly,” he said. Saina’s father Dr Harvir Singh is proud of his daughter’s feat. “She is hardworking and these are rewards of that. It is a proud moment for both me and Usha (Saina’s) mother,” said Dr Harvir Singh.
By virtue of the consecutive title wins, Saina now has 64791.2637 points and is just behind Chinese Yihan Wang, while Xin Wang of China is in the third place.
In March, Saina had attained the fifth position after becoming the first Indian woman to reach the semifinals of the prestigious All England Super Series Championships. Meanwhile, in the men’s ranking, the Indian trio of Chetan Anand, Parupalli Kashyap and Arvind Bhatt were at 15th, 25th and 27th spot respectively.
Mixed doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and Valiyaveetil Diju were static at the seventh place.