Kuala Lumpur: Saina Nehwal managed to survive a tough test in the opening round of the season-opening Malaysia Masters tournament in Kuala Lumpur on
Wednesday as she came back from behind to beat unseeded Deng Joy Xuan of Hong Kong 14-21, 21-18, 21-18.
Saina had a tentative start to her campaign in the World Tour Super 500 tournament but she came back strongly to win a tightly-fought second game. The
Indian shuttler managed to stay ahead of her opponent in the third and final game and even kept her cool to survive a late fightback from Deng Xuan to
seal a second-round berth.
Despite spending more than an hour on court, Saina returned to coach her compatriot and husband Parupalli Kashyap. The former Commonwealth Games
gold medallist, who has finally managed to recover from long-standing injury concerns, survived a stiff test against Rasmus Gemke 19-21, 21-19, 21-10 in
the first round earlier in the day.
Kashyap, who tied the knot with Saina last month, took to social media after the hard-fought first-round win and thanked his “coach”.
Saina also shared a picture of herself and husband Kashyap after their wins on Wednesday. While the seventh-seeded Saina will face another tough test
against unseeded Yip Pui Yin, qualifier Kashyap will take on sixth-seeded Anthony Ginting of Indonesia.
Notably, Saina had revealed that she has benefited a lot from the way Kashyap has been able to help her with the technical aspects of the game. While
praising coach Pullela Gopichand for his efforts, Saina told India Today that her husband has been able to influence her game in the recent past.
“Frankly speaking, he [Kashyap] also started helping me, I am able to see a change in my game,” Saina said during her appearance on Jab We Met along
with Kashyap.
“It’s not easy to be top-level players at the stage because all of them [contemporaries] are playing well. It takes a little bit of time to understand. I was
struggling to understand that after my knee surgery. But Gopi sir and Kashyap have helped me out,” Saina added.
