Saina Nehwal finally brings curtains down on legendary career: 'Now probably I can’t do it anymore'

Indian badminton star Saina Nehwal brought the curtains down on her legendary career on Monday, more than two years since her last competitive appearance, citing her inability to keep up with the physical demands of elite sport as the reason. She retires as one of India’s greatest shuttlers of all time, with her achievement of being the first Indian to win an Olympic medal in badminton (bronze in London 2012) being the central part of her legacy.

Saina had been dealing with a chronic knee condition that had forced her to remain sidelined since the Singapore Open in June 2023, with the 35-year-old having withheld her retirement announcement for the past two-and-a-half years until Monday.

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“I had stopped playing two years back. I actually felt that I entered the sport on my own terms and left on my own terms, so there was no need to announce it,” the three-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist said on a podcast. “If you are not capable of playing anymore, that’s it. It’s fine.”

Saina, who was born in Haryana’s Hisar and currently resides in Hyderabad with shuttler-husband Parupalli Kashyap, further revealed that severe degeneration of her knee prevented her from conducting high-intensity training, which made it impossible for her to continue competing at the elite level of the sport.

“Your cartiledge has totally degenerated, you have arthritis, that’s what my parents needed to know that, my coaches needed to know that, and I just told them, ‘Now probably I can’t do it anymore, it is difficult’,” Saina continued.

‘Didn’t think it was such a big matter to announce my retirement’

As for her decision to announce her retirement two-and-a-half years since her last competitive appearance, Saina said that she did not feel the need to make a formal statement since followers of the sport would have noticed her prolonged absence and assumed her time as a professional player was done.

“Slowly people will also realise that Saina is not playing,” Saina continued.

“I didn’t think it was such a big matter to announce my retirement. I just felt my time was up because I couldn’t push much, that my knee is not able to push like before.

“You train eight to nine hours to be the best in the world, now my knee was giving up in one or two hours. It was swelling and it became very tough to push after that. So I thought it’s enough. I can’t push it anymore,” she added.

Saina had previously suffered a career-threatening knee injury at the 2016 Rio Olympics, a year after winning silver at the BWF World Championships in Jakarta.

However, it did not take her long to bounce back from the injury, with Saina going on to win a second consecutive medal at the World Championships with a bronze in Glasgow 2017. Saina would then win two gold medals at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games the following year – in the women’s singles and mixed team categories respectively.

Her troublesome knee, however, would return to haunt Saina later in her career, and by 2024, she had revealed that she had arthritis and that her cartilage had worn away.

Saina is also a two-time Asian Games medallist – having won team bronze in Incheon 2014 and in singles four years later in Jakarta and Palembang. She had been conferred with the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award, India’s highest sporting honour, in 2010.

Six years later, Saina was bestowed with the Padma Bhushan – India’s third highest civilian award.