New Delhi: Buoyed by a sparkling season with three titles and an Asiad bronze, Saina Nehwal has now set her sights on more titles in 2015 besides fitness en route her preparation for the Rio Olympics.After a poor 2013, where she struggled with form and fitness, Saina started the season with the Syed Modi India Open GP Gold title before lifting the Australian Open and China Open crowns. She also saw her world rankings rise to No.4 from nine early in the year. “It (2014) has been a good year for me.
I worked hard on my fitness and was confident that results would come. My game also improved this year,” Saina said on the sidelines of the launch of her first badminton academy in Greater Noida near here.Pointing out that Indian badminton suffered from lack of quality coaches, “Badminton is coming up very well in India. But we still lack in good coaching. There is infrastructure but not enough coaches,” Saina said.
She also compared the sport in the country with powerhouses like China, Malaysia, Indonesia and Korea. In those countries, every village has 30,000 kids playing badminton. It gives an option of a larger pool to select from. “The coaches there are also Olympic or world champions, and they have the freedom to go to any nook and corner and spot talent, whom they can develop,” she explained.
Saina was excited about her venture into coaching. “I will be there as a coach. I will try to give as much time as possible to the kids and support them. Let’s see how it goes in the initial stages and if the kids do well, then we can think of roping in international level coaches also and make it more professional,” she said.
