I would have felt incomplete without Saina's medal: Gopichand

Describing Saina Nehwal as 'phenomenal', her coach Pullela Gopichand said had Saina had not won the Olympic medal his life would have been incomplete.

-London Olympics 2012 - Complete coverage

Saina and Gopichand returned from London to a warm welcome in Hyderabad.

"Without this medal, I would have felt incomplete. What more I can say," Gopichand said.

"I had dreamt that one day we will bring an Olympic medal. All my goals have been fulfilled, but it was a real challenge. There have been a lot of ups and downs in the last year. Saina had lost to 11 different players."

"When she lost the Denmark event, she came to me weeping and said 'Bhaiya it's not happening'.

"She was weeping and I also started crying. But I told her, 'We will win an Olympic medal','' Gopi said, revealing what they went through before success came calling.

He also spoke about the hard training they put in to make the dream a reality.

"At 9:30pm the lights would be put off since we had to be there at 4:30 am for training. I did not want to miss a single session. All the hard work has now paid off," the soft-spoken Gopichand said.

Asked if he considers Saina the best ever badminton player the country has seen so far, he replied, "She is phenomenal."

"She has done better than all of us. I have told her that now she should look to the 2020 Olympics. She will have two more Olympics, two Asian Games and two Commonwealth Games," he added.