Hyderabad: Sania Nehwal was India’s best hope at the World Badminton Championship but it all came to an end on Monday after she lost to Wang Lin in the women’s singles quarterfinal.
Despite being down with chicken pox one week before the Championship, she delivered a good performance.
Nehwal made her way into the women’s singles quarters but lost to second seed Wang Lin.
Also making to the quarters were the mixed doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and V Diju.
They have risen a whopping 82 places in the last eight months and are set to go higher.
Jwala’s husband and India’s number one men’s player Chetan Anand made to the pre-quarters and Arvind Bhatt and P Kashyap made their higher ranked opponents sweat profusely before bowing out.
“I am not happy, they have the talent to be in the top ten and are better than the players they lost two,” says coach Pulella Gopichand.
Though badminton has never quite enjoyed the mass support of games like hockey, but this time a full strength crowd was there to cheer the Indian players.
