All England Championships: In quarters, things get even tougher for Saina Nehwal, Kidambi Srikanth

Nehwal would find her sights, start feeling better and then fist-pump and smash her way through the next two to enter the quarters. “In this tournament I’ve not felt very well from the start as I’ve been suffering with diarrhoea but I’m just going on with that. In the first set I felt like I was not able to move as I was feeling really heavy and sluggish. In the second and third set I warmed up a bit more and got into the rhythm. I tried to catch her out as much as possible but it was not easy at all with the condition I’m in,” she told the BWF after winning 8-21, 21-16,21-13.

You crave some comfort food, hope to keep it down and look forward to a good night’s sleep after a day like that; Saina gets a date with Tai Tzu Ying, the world’s trickiest player posing the knottiest of puzzles, instead. “That will be a very tricky match. She is an excellent opponent, she’s very good at deception and can catch you out with well disguised set-plays. It’s not easy to play against someone who has such an arsenal of great shots. As I say though, I will try my best,” Nehwal promised.

Tai Tzu meantime made no pretence of even breaking sweat getting there, as she barely hit the half-hour mark in beating Beiwen Zhang.

With absolutely nothing to lose, Nehwal won’t be found lacking in effort. She will be expected to manage something that’s arduous though, even without the stomach wanting to turn itself inside out: frustrate Tai Tzu by picking all her trickery and dazzling shots and stay eternally patient through a long and strategic match – if she wants to start thinking of winning.

Coach Gopichand will have to sketch out the strategy and hope Saina’s limbs execute what her ears are bombarded with and processing. Against Line, Nehwal did a good job of silencing an opponent who can be as distracting with her buzziness as Tai Tzu, but not even a fraction deceptive. It wasn’t the smoothest of run-ups to the quarters where she’d have preferred anyone but Tai Tzu, but Saina Nehwal hasn’t built her reputation winning walks in the park.

Srikanth stares at equally intimidating numbers: Momota’s beaten him all of last year. Against Jonatan Christie whom he beat 21-17, 11-21, 21-12, Srikanth gave glimpses of the big down the line smashes, the curling drops and an assertive net-play in his patent follow-up attacks.

Saina Nehwal progressed to the quarterfinals of the All England Championships. (File Photo)

Mid-game errors

But neither was the Indonesian particularly sharp, nor could Srikanth avoid the mid-game pool of errors. The raw material’s always been there – moulding an upset against Momota is quite another challenge altogether. Patience is the key for him too – because a win means an assured long match, where the smashes will need the heft and he’ll have to hit through the left-handed opponent who is remarkably consistent and allergic to errors.

The full measure of his precision and accuracy that helped him beat Christie will need to continue into Friday – though that could be just the start of what he’ll need to summon to get past the tough-to-beat Japanese. Korean Son Wan Ho – the only player with some amount of success against Momota, has worn him out with a game he stretched to limits, dragging it out like only the Korean could. Srikanth, not known to boast similar patience, has better strokes in his armoury, but will still need to play out of his skin if he wants to overturn the last bunch of reverses.

The All England is as good a place as any to show that he belongs to the top league of the current generation of men’s singles shuttlers. Srikanth has the chops but has always allowed his temperament to let him down, giving up in battles he’s equipped for but looking deeply reluctant to confront. On Thursday though, even while he played Christie, he kept glancing at Momota wrapping up his match on the adjacent court. He’d refuse to sit in the breaks he got, freeing his arms jauntily as if in anticipation of the big one on Friday. In his current psychedelic kit, he is dressed to be spotted in pitch darkness on the M6 motorway wheeling into Birmingham. Can he brighten up the arena indoors will depend solely on how he deals with Kento Momota.