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Home / News / Chinese Women No Longer As Strong


Posted 21.06.2010 at 09:29
SINGAPORE - Change is in the air, with signs pointing to a revolution in women's badminton.

Heading that revolution are the South Korean women's team, who upset the Chinese giants 3-1 in the Uber Cup finals for the first time in 12 years to lift the coveted trophy in Kuala Lumpur last month.

India's top female player Saina Nehwal, who won the Badminton World Federation's (BWF) Junior Championship in 2008, is another who has savoured the feeling.

The 20-year-old defeated China's Wang Lin (world No 4) at last year's Indonesia Open Super Series to clinch her first major senior title, and is currently the top-ranked non-Chinese shuttler at world No 6.

The newly-crowned India Open Grand Prix Gold winner gave fans back home much to cheer about yesterday, after clinching her second super series title at the Li Ning Singapore Open at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, with a 2-0 win over 16-year-old Tai Tzu Ying of Taiwan.

Victories over China's reigning world champion Lu Lan (world No 10) and Li Xuerui in Singapore have once again put her in the spotlight.

Nehwal, who was guided by 2001 All England winner Pullela Gopichand, is revelling in the attention and believes this could be the end of the Chinese women's stranglehold.

"The current players are not as strong as those like Zhang Ning, and their young ones are beatable," she said. "There is a lot of change in the game, and it's about time that happened. Everyone has good strokes, but it takes stamina and fitness to beat them.

"A lot of time in the women's game, players give up when they meet the top Chinese, but for me, even when I play the world No 1, I feel like a champion and that mentality has helped me," she added.

For her week-long effort at the Li Ling Singapore Open, the Indian took home the winner's cheque of US$15,000 ($20,700).

"This is one of my best performances and I'm happy with how I did today, but obviously the world champs in August are the next target," she said.

Nehwal heads to Jakarta to defend her title at the Indonesia Open this week.

On the cards later are the BWF World Championships, October's Commonwealth Game in New Delhi and November's Asian Games in Guangzhou.

And winning the Commonwealth Games gold in front of her home crowd will be special for the shuttler.

For now, Nehwal is just hoping to get some shopping done before she jets off to the Indonesian capital.

"I'm off to Mustafa (shopping centre) after this," she told MediaCorp.

http://www.todayonline.com/Sports/EDC100621-0000077/After-the-win,-a-spot-of-shopping
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