Ace Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal on Tuesday said that by bagging the China Open title with Kidambi Srikanth has proved that Chinese players are not invincible.
While talking to media, Nehwal said, “Winning against Chinese players on their home turf is big achievement. Chinese players are powerful but not invincible.” She said the decision to move away from her long-term coach Pullela Gopichand was purely professional. “Gopichand is a national coach and he has to devote time to groom upcoming players. So, I decided to take coaching from Vimal Kumar. I am glad to win the China Open under him,” said Saina. Speaking about her plans to change her base to Rio for training in view of 2016 Olympics, she said she could not speak about it at present as she was training with her coach Vimal Kumar in Bangalore.
On whether the number one title was still elusive for her, Saina, who is currently ranked world number four, said that achieving the number 1 rank would be good but her focus was mainly on playing well and winning games. Responding to a query about the requirement of foreign coaches in badminton, she said,“I feel that foreign coaches are necessary but it depended upon the association and individual players.