Trailblazing Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal feels that she may have excelled more as a sportsperson if she had pursued tennis instead of badminton.
Nehwal has had an impressive career as a badminton player, becoming the first Indian woman shuttler to be ranked No. 1 in the world and the first woman athlete from the country to win an Olympic medal.
"I sometimes feel that it would have been good if my parents had put me in tennis," Saina said during her "Her Story–My Story" talk at the Rashtrapati Bhawan. "There is more money and I had more strength, I think. I could have done better in tennis than badminton," she added.
Despite her success in badminton, Nehwal revealed that she didn't have any role models to look up to when she started playing at the age of 8.
"When I started, I didn't have any role models to look up to, no one to aspire to be world number one or an Olympic medallist like. I hadn't seen anyone do that in badminton before me," Saina said.
In addition to her Olympic bronze medal, Nehwal also won a bronze and a silver at the World Championships and multiple Commonwealth Games gold medals, including two in the women's singles.
Encouraging young people to pursue a career in sports, she emphasized the need to focus on games and pointed out the disparity in medal counts between India and China. "I always tell children to concentrate on games. China wins 60-70 medals, we only get 3-4. There are so many doctors and engineers, their names don't come in newspapers," she said.
"I want girls to especially come forward and start getting fit and get into sports. Now we are there for the children, there are world number ones, Olympic champions and so many medallists to look up to," she added.
Reflecting on her career, she acknowledged that her hard work compensated for the lack of talent. "I loved hard work, I was not the most talented person, I needed to practice a lot.
If a talented player is doing something 100 times, I had to do it 1000 times. But I like hard work. My coaches liked my never-give-up attitude."
