(S.Ravi Seshu)
India’s star shuttler Saina Nehwal underwent a surgery to her right knee that incapacitated her to pursue her Olympic campaign in Rio on Saturday at Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital and Medical Research Institute in Mumbai. In medical parlance, her right knee underwent arthroscopic infrapatellar fractured spur excison. As a result, Saina is believed to be out of action for four months.
On August 4, 2012, Saina created history by becoming the first Indian to win an Olympic Games bronze medal in badminton after her World No-2 Chinese opponent Xin Wang retired because of a knee injury when the former was trailing 18-21, 0-1. Sadly, the 26-year-old was ousted from the fray by World No-61 Marjia Ulitina 21-18, 21-19 due to a nagging knee injury in the next Olympics at Rio.
The very injury (of her opponent) that got her medal in London Olympics denied her a chance to compete for one in Rio much to the disappointment of Saina, her present coach Vimal Kumar and scores of Indian fans. At a time when the entire nation is celebrating her junior PV Sindhu’s historic Olympic feat, Saina got hospitalized with ‘right knee infrapetaller spur displaced fracture with patellar tendon impingment’.
A medical report, surprisingly posted by Saina on her twitter handle, indicates that she had pain since August 1, 2016 and worsened on August 8 after training/ match. It means the World No-5 was in severe pain in Rio. Saina is likely to be out of action for four months, according to a tweet that was retweeted by Saina.
“There was a pain in my knee, so I wasn’t able to play well. It was fat pad inflammation in the right knee. I’ve got a heavy strapping on my knee, and my movement was not good I tried, but I wasn’t able to do it,” Saina reasoned after her humiliating exit from Rio Olympics.
Saina is seen very active in her micro blogging handle from her hospital bed attracting the attention of sports persons and her fans. In response to her ‘after surgery’ photo, the Cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar said: “Wish you a speedy recovery from the knee surgery. Phase of injury in a career is difficult but you have always been a fighter!”
Get well soon, Saina.
