Saina Nehwal and her 3rd Indonesian Title!

Saina Nehwal winning momentum continues here in Jakarta as well. I was flipping through channels and suddenly switched on to Neo Sports, what a luck!! They were showing live streaming of Indonesia final. Saina was taking on Chinese Li Xuerei and the game was just about to start.

In the opening game Saina was not moving well or may be Li was hitting too many smashes which Indian wasn’t able to respond well and in return hitting on the net or outside the court.

In the second game she came with extra energy and played some excellent drop shots and smashed the shuttle quiet a few times. That surely gave her confidence but when she was on the verge of winning the second game and up 18-14, she conceded 6 consecutive points and had 2 championship points against her but again came back strongly and win the game by 22-20.

Third game was really intense. Score was moving like 1-1 5-5 11-11 and even 19-19. But Li’s return on net made me rose from the chair and clapping hard for her. Loved that moment!!

22 years old won the third game by 21-19 and thus winning her 3^rd Indonesian title that went little more than an hour. That was Sain’s 2^nd title in just 2 weeks, what a player she is and from where she gets that energy and motivation to do well all the times.

There is never a prouder feeling for me than and Indian flag flying high on the foreign soil. Crowd was ecstatic so was me. All credit to Saina and Pulela Gopichand.

5th seed words after winning the title "It was a really, really tough and I love the crowd here. It's really nice here. Whenever I enter the court, I feel like a champion here,"

It was a battle for Saina against an opponent to whom she had lost four times and won just once. So she wad a lot more to prove and once against a Chinese. Now we have started winning against Chinese and that is surely a good sign for the younger players who aspire to make big names for themselves in the future. Saina beat Chinese in QF Korean in SF and Chinese Li here in big final as well. Truly a class act!!

Now I hope politicians and administrative staff doesn’t start playing politics with her’s game as well what they played against Mahesh Bhupati. They put so much effort and give their best to reach to that level so we must respect their choices as well before making any final decision.

Happy Father's Day!!

Thank You!!

Djoko vs Tsonga encounter!

After watching that epic match I couldn’t contain myself to put down some words here. Oh well what a match that was. After easily winning first set by 6-1, Djoko had tough time dealing with local boy Tsonga. I wouldn’t write what happened till 3^rd set but in the fourth set we as a spectator had heart in our mouth. Djoko had 2 match points against him at 5-4 and he hit the forehand at the corner. How brave these players are! A miss and he was out from the competition. How do they remain calm, focused and motivated when we, watching off the field have our heart beat stopping at every shot? There is really a lot to learn from these players. How not to lose focus and not become aggravated when things don’t go your way?

That why he is standing at the top I think, Djoko. Tsonga gave him chances after chances and the big guy sneaked through in the end. Last set was purely dominated by Djoko and Tsonga looked searching for his shots. In the end Djoko won comfortably by 6-1 5-7 5-7 7-6(6) 6-1.

One thing that impressed me as well was when Tsonga was leading in the fourth set, crowd was cheering for him like anything, standing and clapping after every point won by Tsonga. But at the end Djoko girlfriend gave me the last smile.

So now we have Djoko vs Roger semifinal coming up on Thursday while Rafa takes on 12^th seed Almagro and Murray takes on big Spaniard Ferrer in quarters tomorrow.

If all goes well, we can again have a classic encounter in the final. We have all the top seeds in the tournament in men’s game while in women’s Masha is leading all the way.

We have another good news from the center. Paes Vesnina and Bhupati Mirza pair have advanced to the semifinals. Hope to see the cup coming back to India.

Never Change yourself!

Many times most graceful acts of yours are not reciprocated, what you do if the other side is not able to understand, absorb and reciprocate kindness, grace and goodwill. Just persist with what you think is the right course of action.

Let me tell you all a story, may be you have heard it already.

There was a Sadhu(saint) taking bath in a river. Many other people were also taking bath alongside. After a while people saw some thing strange. Sadhu was trying to save a scorpion who was about to sink in the water. Every time Sadhu will lift scorpion in his hand, he will sting, hand will tremble, and the scorpion will fall into the water. Sadhu will again lift scorpion, again it will sting, and it will fall. One of the bystanders could not resist asking sadhu, why was he doing that repeatedly? Sadhu replied, look, he does what is his natural behaviour that is to sting. When he does not change his behaviour, why should I change my behavior which is to save? -------welll.....

Courtesy Anil Gupta

Prof IIMA

One must never change what he thinks is right and what he believes in. Because when things don’t go in your way then there will at least be one person that can smile and proudly say that I did that! Never let that attitude in you change in spite of any unfavorable odds.

Have a lovely day. ;)