With folded hands and a bowed head, Ratchanok Intanon apologised to Saina Nehwal after she accidentally hit her on the forehead with a smash on the very second point of the match. However, it was Saina who had the last laugh as she entered her first final in more than a year after defeating the world number four 21-19, 21-19 in the semi-finals of the Indonesia Masters in Jakarta on Saturday.
The decision to skip the Malaysia Masters, where she was the defending champion (her last title) and take a break for a fortnight after the PBL meant that Saina entered the tournament fresh and hungry for a deep run.
The break has paid rich dividends as she has accounted for world no. 3 PV Sindhu, Intanon and world no. 8 Chen Yufei in the course of this tournament.
In the first game, it was Intanon who got off to the better start. Saina managed to increase the pace of play before slowing it down at will by making judicious use of her drop shot in the early exchanges. Both the players were level till 5-5 in the opening game before Intanon won the next three points as Saina committed a service fault and two unforced errors.
Even though Saina still remains susceptible while moving forward after her knee injury, she has countered that shortcoming by bringing her supple wrists into play at the net and flicking the shuttle at the last moment in this tournament, giving opponents very little time to adjust.
Saina has struggled against deceptive players in the past but she has always enjoyed a lot of success against Intanon. In fact, Intanon is one of the top players that she has a winning record against, even after that horrific knee injury at the Olympics. Unlike World no. 1 Tai Tazu Ying, Intanon has a tendency of gifting away a few cheap points in every game by going for extravagant shots.
Against a player like Saina, who retrieves every shuttle and never gives up, lack of consistency has often been the proved to be the undoing of Intanon.
Just like in the match against Sindhu in the quarterfinals, Saina's use of the body smash was particularly impressive and it was that shot that got her on a four-point streak that enabled her to get the lead for the first time in the match at 14-13.
The first game was played at a frenetic pace and a 32-shot rally was the pick of the lot. Saina targeted Intanon's backhand repeatedly before finishing the point off with a powerful body smash that Intanon had little chance of retrieving.
The down-the-line smash has always been a good indicator of Saina's form and she has been on top of the shot from the outset in this tournament. While Saina mostly relied on her powerful smashes and delicate crosscourt drops to win points, Intanon's modus operandi revolved around placement rather than power.
Intanon edged ahead again at 18-17 but her play was increasingly erratic from there as Saina won the high-quality opening game in 21 minutes after Intanon netted a down-the-line smash.
With Saina playing from the easier end in the second game -- as Intanon had to battle the drift -- she opened up a 6-1 lead to all but seal the match.
Intanon won the Malaysia Masters last week and ran out of gas by the second game as played her ninth match in 11 days. With four of her eight previous matches lasting almost an hour or longer, the aftereffects were clearly visible as Intanon's lifts grew increasingly short as the match progressed and the only shots that won her points were half smashes and drops.
Intanon did mount a late challenge in the second game but Saina closed out the match with another body smash to become the first Indian woman to reach the final at this tournament.
For a period between 2013 and 2016, Saina and Intanon were the two players besides Carolina Marin, who started challenging the Chinese players' dominance consistently. With Sindhu, Tai, Nozomi Okuhara and Akane Yamaguchi being the standout players since the Olympics in 2016, the women's game is now more competitive than ever before in the 21st century.
If Saina and Intanon's display in this tournament is any indication, they are back at their best and women's game is the biggest beneficiary.