The Indian badminton team led by ace shuttlers Saina Nehwal and P Kashyap today left for China,hoping to overcome some tough challenges and replicate their Commonwealth Games success,in the Asian Games to be held in Guangzhou from November 12 to 27. With a CWG gold behind her,Saina will be the cynosure of all eyes at the Asiad. The Indian ace said that it would be tough to repeat her performance in China,but she has set her eyes on the yellow metal. "Asian Games is much tougher. The competition level in the Asian Games is very high compared to the Commonwealth Games. To add to it,the Chinese will be a great challenge in front of their fans," she said on the sidelines of a felicitation programme here today. "But I am quite prepared and will try my best. After CWG,till now I have seen a lot of improvement in my game. I am hopeful of a medal,possibly gold,because nothing is impossible," added the 20-year-old Hyderabadi. Saina said as less than a month separated the October 3-14 CWG and the Asian Games,she rushed back to training after the Delhi event. "The Commonwealth Games and Asian Games were very close to each other,so I did not waste time and went back to training as soon as possible. I took only a day's break after the Commonwealth Games," said Saina,who formally received the Rajiv Khel Ratna Award from Sports Minister M S Gill today. Besides Saina's gold,India won silver in the mixed team event,the women's doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa won gold and Kashyap bagged the bronze medal to make the Commonwealth Games a highly successful one. But Kashyap felt replicating the same success in China would be an arduous task as the competition in Asiad would be tougher than the World Championship. "It is tougher than the World Championships and I feel it is the toughest competition for a shuttler and winning a medal there would be difficult," Kashyap told PTI before leaving for China. "But I had a good stint in the Commonwealth Games and the Denmark Open and I am confident of a good show. I have trained very hard and I'm at the best form. I know,on a given day,I can beat anyone in the world," he added. The 16-member team sans Chetan Anand - who pulled out because of injury - will also have V Diju,Rupesh Kumar,Sanave Thomas,Aparna Balan and Aditi Mutatkar. Arvind Bhat,Gurusaidutt,Akshay Dewalkar,Arun Vishnu,Trupti Murgunde,Prajakta Sawant and Arundhati Pantawan will also be in the team.
