How Saina Nehwal can give India the perfect Independence Day gift

With the Great Badminton Wall of China effectively breached - there was not a single Chinese in the women's singles semis at the World Badminton Championship this year - a Carolina Marin versus Saina Nehwal match-up is becoming a fairly regular feature in top notch tournaments. They meet in a final again tomorrow in Indonesia, after having matched their wits at the All-England championship final in March this year. And the fact that the world number one takes on the world number two in the final of badminton's premier event, is proof that the best in the world are at the top of their game, justifying their rankings.

All of India would hope the heartbreak of All-England does not repeat in Jakarta on Sunday. On that day, Saina after winning the first game, allowed Marin to come back into the match, taking the second at 21-14 and going on a rampage in the third, winning 21-7. That was Saina's first defeat to the Spaniard in four meetings. Marin showed rankings did not matter - she was world number six then to Saina's world number three - and pummelled Saina into submission.

Saina and her coach Vimal Kumar would do well to remember how Marin won every single point that evening. The final at the World Badminton championship will be as much about Saina's grit, tenacity, power as it will be about strategy. Video analysis plays a crucial role and knowing rival coaches stealthily send technical staff to shoot Saina's matches from different angles, Vimal and Saina will have to plan for every move on court that Marin is likely to make. Given Saina's ability to outlast her rivals on court thanks to her tremendous physical stamina, an obvious ploy to adopt will be to draw Marin into longer rallies. Play the mindgame as much as the game of badminton. Saina needs to keep both Marin and the bird guessing about her next move.

On court, it will be a match between Marin's never-say-die attitude and Saina's "Maar doongi (I will beat you)" temperament.

Even more critical will be how Saina handles Marin's showwomanship on court. Unlike the Chinese and the Japanese, who are not overly expressive on court, Marin is an intimidating personality. She is expressive, she is noisy, she exults for every point won, she screams for every point lost. It is in that war zone of high decibel level verbal volleys that Saina has to let her dream for the gold medal take flight.

Saina would do well to note that Marin rolled her ankle during her third round match and had to undergo physiotherapy. Even a five per cent drop in fitness levels can make a difference at this level, if the rival targets the weak spot. But since then, Marin has won the quarters and the semis. And the top seed also would draw superstitious comfort from that she had injured the same ankle at the 2014 world championship in Copenhagen, which she won.

Before leaving for the championship, Vimal had said Saina is mentally more tough than any of her rivals on the world stage. That has always been Saina's X-factor. Like most champions, it is that tremendous self-belief that helps her win. And she backs it by putting in that extra hard work, making every bead of sweat a footstep in pursuit of a higher goal. At her own military camp, Saina is both the commander and the soldier.

When I was writing her biography in 2012, Saina told me, "Mentally I am very strong. I never think that I am up against a formidable Chinese or a Korean. I keep reminding myself that when I was 13 years old, I defeated seniors who were 23 and 24."

In Jakarta, Saina would need to tell herself that the All-England final is in the past. And that she, the world number 2 can put it past the World number 1, tomorrow. India would love to receive a World championship gold medal as a belated Independence Day gift.

(TS Sudhir is the author of Saina Nehwal's biography, published in July 2012.)