They came, they saw, and yes, they conquered. The Hyderabad Hotshots scripted a fairy tale finish that saw team icon, captain and the tournament’s MVP Saina Nehwal rise above a sea of canary yellow, holding aloft the inaugural Indian Badminton League trophy in Mumbai on Saturday.
The yellow fever has yet to break, going by Saina’s 1,000-watt smile as she attempted to outshine the trophy which she, along with team-owner Potluri Vara Prasad and coach J. Rajender Kumar presented to her home town of Hyderabad for the first time.
“It was a very unique experience, playing at the IBL. I never thought it would be such a success,” Saina admitted.
“Playing for my city Hyderabad is a dream come true. Winning the IBL just sweetens the deal and I thank my coach and my teammates for making our dream came true the very first time. This gives me extra motivation to perform even better the next time,” added the world no. 4, adjudged the best player of the tournament for her 7-0 win record.
As the tournament rolled towards a close, Hyderabad decided to field Saina for the mixed doubles match in the semi-final and final. Saina, for her part, is devoutly thankful it never actually came down to that.
“Of course I was nervous,” Saina admits with a sudden giggle. “In the final, I would have played against Markis Kido, who is not easy to defeat. I would have given it my 100 per cent, but I was definitely hoping we would finish before the match went down to the wire. And luckily, we did,” she beamed.
“It was an experiment. But since Pradnya (Gadre) and Tarun (Kona), while having played well throughout, did not do too well against Ashwini (Ponnappa) and Fischer (Nielsen) in our last league match, we came up with this plan and the team agreed,” she said.
“It was a risky move but it turned lucky for us.”
One talking point before the IBL was the high-profile clash between Saina and P.V. Sindhu. The two leading ladies of Indian badminton locked horns twice, once in the league stage and then in the final, and both times, it was an especially aggressive Saina who emerged the victor. But she tried to play down any suggestion of a rivalry with Sindhu.
“Sindhu has been playing really well lately and I had read in the papers about our ‘rivalry’, but I was just focused on my match,” Saina said.
On the new points system, where the first two games are a race to 21 points without the mandatory two-point gap while the decider will be a 11-point contest, Saina said it adds a much-needed edge to each encounter.
“Had we played under the regular points system, each tie would have lasted five or six hours, which would not have engaged the spectators. Also, this filled the proceedings with tension. The third game is only for 11 points which anyone can win in mere seconds. It is exciting,” she said.
Now that IBL-1 has been consigned to history, it is now back to the drawing board for the governing council and its various stakeholders, who will prepare for the second edition while the shuttlers get back to their ways on the international circuit.