It's almost a year since I posted anything,and while there is so much happening,I'm not sure too many folks actually noticed that Saina Nehwal won the Yonex Chinese Taipei Open and reached the semis of China Masters Super Series this month.While her Olympic run till the quarters got some media coverage,as usual the lack of a medal meant that she was forgotten till London 2012.I cant think of too many sports in India which can boast of an 18 year old girl ranking 12th in the world and looking good to break into the top 10 by the end of the year.
While I found myself waking up at odd hours to watch something other than cricket for a change, Doordarshan commentators made sure that the country knows her as "Sania" during the Olympics, our Sports Minister asked her coach and one of only 2 Indians to have won the All England Championship "Who are you?" , her major sponsors include Mittal Champion's Trust and Globosport, and yet come London 2012, the whole country expects Olympic medals.And if a 12th ranked player has to struggle for recognition in a supposedly 'medal starved' country,let's not even discuss about junior sportsmen
I looked up her orkut fan community...joined her fan page on facebook which had a 100 odd members (Yuvraj Singh has 2380),
and this is after she reached the quarters in Beijing!
Agreed,Badminton is not a popular sport in India,but then wasn't
the BCCI against having a T20 World Cup? Why does success not popularize a sport (other than cricket) in India?
After having an overflow of sports channels, I couldn't find even one telecasting her matches live in either the Taipei Open or the China Masters.
I, for one am totally disillusioned with all the hype that's been built up after the three Olympic Medals in Beijing.Come London 2012, all I hope and pray for is that Doordarshan doesnt get the telecast rights, and if they do, they at least find someone who can pronounce names correctly.
