![]() (In a tennis match lasting three times longer a player covers around three km). So when it shoots to 160 bpm during matches she is in, as Gopichand sees it, a "comfort zone", her mind uncluttered by physical strain.Įndurance is the foundation of her sport: players cover nearly six km in a 75-minute singles match. Twice in the session her pulse is checked by physio Kiran Challagundla, who explains later that she needs to maintain her threshold heart rate of 180-190 beats per minute (bpm) for half an hour. She hits with Gopichand and two other men their shots echo in the high archway of the hall like colliding high-tension wires. Nehwal is the younger of two girls born to badminton-playing Haryanvis, Harvir and Usha but she also traces her lineage to Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand. In the last three decades, it is the pure athletic sport in which Indians have won titles the world covets. It is badminton that has given India its best-performing athletes, poetic because the sport was invented here. Understand this: Saina Nehwal is India"s No.1 athlete. A pure athlete built through pounding blood and unflagging will. This is a player hewn out of more primordial material: muscle, bone, sinew and flesh. Yet, this is no "teen prodigy" of youthful, quicksilver gifts. ![]() The first Indian woman to win an Asian Satellite event, the first Indian woman to win a four-star tournament, the first Indian woman and the youngest winner of a Super Series Grand Prix (one of the game"s 12 elite events), the Indonesian Open in June. ![]() World junior champion and Olympic quarter-finalist. ![]() At the Hyderabad World Championships (August 10 to 16) Nehwal will be India"s foremost challenger. ![]()
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