Towards the end of the women's singles final at the Indonesia Masters, Tai Tzu Ying flashed a cheeky grin even though she had just lost a point. Her opponent Saina Nehwal had just handed her a near-perfect badminton lesson. Having mostly traded clears until then, she set up the point with a well-disguised block from the back of the court. Tai scurried to the front of the court to lift but Saina, who had already predicted that stroke, was waiting at the net and slapped a cross-court flick to the vacant space behind Tai.
But if Tai could smile it was because the point would only be a minor victory for the Indian. At this point Saina was still trailing 11-18 after conceding the first game. The point would be the exception, one of the few times Saina showed initiative and was allowed to dictate the pace of the rally.
Saina would concede the momentum almost immediately, hitting two clears long to give Tai match point. The Taipei player would win after Saina hit another clear long. It had taken her just 26 minutes to register a 21-9, 21-13 thumping -- the seventh straight time she had beaten the Indian.
For Saina -- who had fought so hard over the course of the tournament, beating three higher-ranked players, including compatriot PV Sindhu and Ratchanok Intanon -- the result was a sobering reminder of the limitations she has to work around.
Ever since returning from a knee injury, Saina has been susceptible with her movements but has compensated for it with her work rate, while her net play has remained as strong as ever. This is a stopgap that works well enough against most players.
Against Tai though, the slowness of movement clearly showed compounded by the fact that Saina simply was not able to read her opponent. She has not for a while now. While Saina still holds a 5-9 record against the Taiwanese, her last win was secured five years back. Needing to wait until the final moment to figure out which way the shuttle was being played, she was always at a severe disadvantage. Too often, Saina was caught undecided in the mid-court expecting a drop, as she did when 3-10 down in the opening game, only for Tai to turn the racquet face at the last moment to flick a cross-court winner.
The buzzsaw-like intensity of Tai never gave Saina respite. Just three minutes into the game -- not enough time for her to even gather her thoughts and think of a counter -- and the Indian was already trailing 3-11.
Adding to Saina's troubles were her difficulties in adapting to the significant drift on court at Jakarta's Istora stadium. Whenever Saina tried to blunt Tai by pushing the shuttle to the back of the court, she more often than not hit it long. Saina conceded 15 points in the match when her hit floated beyond the far tramline. She was simply unable to get any sort of momentum going in her favour, her best run being two straight points to go from 5-12 to 7-12 in the opener and three consecutive points to go from 5-13 to 8-13.
Despite the one-sided loss, there is much Saina can take from this tournament. She was finally playing free of injury and this showed in the fact that she was playing her first final in a year. Her last final had been the Malaysia Masters in 2017. Yet that tournament had seen a weakened field. Indonesia was far more competitive, with Saina beating three higher-ranked players to make it to the final showdown. "For me the last season was not good," she said. "I was losing [in the] first [round], second round or maximum quarter-finals. So the training that I did before this, two weeks after the PBL (Premier Badminton League), was quite good. I'm not really up to the mark but I am happy that I am moving well. So finally the winning happened."
For Saina the challenge will now be to replicate her efforts at the India Open, which begins next week. She hasn't had a great run at this particular tournament. "Before the touch was missing," she said. "I was not able to cross the rounds because my fitness was not up to the mark. But in this tournament, I can see that my fitness is good. I'm able to hit well, move well." Indeed, if her performance in Indonesia all the way to the final shows anything, it is that she still has it in her to compete at an elite level. Tai, though, remains a mystery that remains to be unravelled.