Solving the Chinese puzzle

Dubai: It's interesting to go through the women's rankings on the Badminton World Federation website. The top-six features five Chinese players, understandably so, given their domination of the shuttle sport. But what is more noteworthy is that there's only one player outside their own country that the Chinese consider a serious threat to their dominance and that happens to be current world No. 5 India's Saina Nehwal.

The 22-year-old celebrated her birthday in style not only defending her Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold last weekend, but also beating two top Chinese players on the way. And so far as head-to-head meetings go, she's 0-4 against No. 1 Wang Yihan, 2-4 against No. 2 Wang Xin, 2-1 against No. 3 Wang Shixian - whom she beat in the final at Basel, 1-4 against No. 4 Li Xuerui and 0-3 against No. 6 Jiang Yanjiao. Of these, the three Wangs are expected to feature in the London Olympics and Saina tells XPRESS in an exclusive interview why she thinks she will be ready for them in her quest for the ultimate gold medal.

"Truth be told, I have never feared the Chinese," she said.

"I love playing against them, for the more I do that, the better I will get. I have a decent record against them, having beaten everyone except the world No. 1. With the Olympics coming up, I'd like to play against them as much as possible, so as to get to know their game better. I have the ABC Championship, the Indian Open, the Singapore Open and the Malaysian Open before London, so I am sure I will be meeting them often in those tournaments. I will have about 40 days to practice after that to fine-tune my game, so I should be well-prepared for the Olympics,"

Incidentally, Saina's last tournament win before this came exactly a year back at the same tournament. While niggling injuries have kept her from playing to her best in the remainder of 2011, she believes she is closer than ever to solving the Chinese puzzle.

"The idea is to keep looking at their matches again and again. It's been a bit frustrating in the sense that some of the matches that I have lost against them have been so close, a few mistakes here and there and then sometimes I have not been in the mood. But I have realised that you have to be alert throughout playing against these Chinese and make every opening count," she said.

Having reached a career-high No. 2 in 2010, does she think she can get to the coveted No. 1 spot?

"Honestly, I am not too worried about that at the moment. It will of course be great getting there, but it will be even better if I can win more major tournaments. If I can do that, the ranking will take care of itself," said Saina, who despite her gruelling schedule had managed to pay a flying visit to Dubai in 2010.

In fact, so gruelling has been her schedule that Saina hasn't been able to celebrate her birthday properly for the second year in a row. "I had an impromtu celebration after the semi-final on Saturday. The crowd chanted happy birthday and a cake was cut. I haven't had the chance to celebrate with friends or family yet," she said.

 Did you know?

Saina has a brown belt in karate. She quit the sport at 8 when she was asked to have a motorcycle run over her stomach