Saina Nehwal on Sunday won her second singles Commonwealth Games gold medal by defeating none other than the World No. 3, PV Sindhu, in an all Indian women’s singles final at Gold Coast, Australia.
Photo: Getty ImagesSindhu won a silver to give India its fourth and fifth badminton medals taking overall medals’ tally to 62 at the Gold Coast Games.
With this win, Saina’s overall head-to-head record against Sindhu now stands at 4-1. The last time these two Indian ace shuttlers met in a final was at the National Badminton Championships in 2017, when Saina won 21-17, 27-25 to clinch her third title.
Saina, coming from a disappointing the last Olympics campaign, made up for Rio as she clinched her second Commonwealth Games badminton singles gold in a tense finalwhose score ended in her favour 21-18, 23-21.
When questioned about how this gold differed to the one she won on home soil eight years ago, Nehwal said, “Much tougher because the pressure is always there when you already have gold, so there is a lot more expectation.”
“It was a very pressurised tournament, a lot of top competition from the Malaysians, it was a very challenging tournament,” said Nehwal.
She added, “I put it next to my Olympic medal and my world number one ranking. It’s a very emotional moment because I’ve been waiting for one good, big victory after that disappointing (second-round) loss at Rio where I had to retire because of my injury and had to go through surgery.”