French Open Badminton: 5 players to look forward to

#3 Saina Nehwal

That age is just a number, Saina Nehwal showed in ample amounts at the Denmark Open last week. At 28, she is the oldest player in the current women’s singles top 10. Yet that hasn’t ebbed her fighting spirit or her hunger.

In Odense, it was a resurgent Saina who stole the show by beating the two in-form Japanese superstars -- Akane Yamaguchi and Nozomi Okuhara -- on her way to the final. Even in the summit clash, she managed to take a game off the irrepressible World No. 1 Tai Tzu Ying, which was the first time in three years she was able to do so.

That raises hopes of a promising performance from the former World No. 1 this week as well. Nehwal is drawn to face the former world champion Okuhara once more in the early stages of the tournament. Considering the improved fitness she showed last week, it will not be wrong to expect her to repeat her heroics in Paris too.

About the author

Sudeshna is a veteran Indian Sports and International Tennis journalist as well as editor at Sportskeeda. She has an overall experience of over 10 years with top publications like The Bridge, Fox Sports Asia, and gained a keen interest in Indian sports since the 2002 Commonwealth and Asian Games when she was in school.

Sudeshna holds a Master's degree in Journalism and Mass Communication. She attends tournaments regularly and being a highly experienced journalist, she ensures she only contacts the correct people from her network for the most authentic information to be put in her articles.

Sudeshna’s favorite Indian athlete is PV Sindhu owing to her big-tournament performances. She also admires Tennis legend Rafael Nadal for his resilience and has witnessed the Spaniard in action at the French Open, due to which, Roland Garros is her all-time favorite Grand Slam tournament.

Neeraj Chopra’s gold medal win at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics made a lasting impact on Sudeshna. She has also interviewed him along with Badminton star Chirag Shetty and several other sports personalities. She has done on-ground reporting on multiple ITF tournaments along with the Premier Badminton League, Asian Boxing Championships and the Davis Cup.

When not using her skills and years of experience in crafting compelling content, Sudeshna likes to read, watch movies and travel.

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Edited by Kishan Prasad