Until the then-18-year-old Saina Nehwal reached the quarter-finals of the Beijing Open in 2008, Indian hopes of winning a medal in badminton always took a beating. Regardless of how good the Indian players were, except going through the opening couple of rounds, there wasn’t much that tantamounted from the discipline by way of addition of medals’ honours in the quadrennial event.

Each of the eight years after her success in Beijing have been a revelation. Be it her conviction-driven performance to get India’s maiden Olympic medal in badminton at the 2012 London Games, or her efforts in becoming the country’s first-ever world No. 1 in the women’s discipline, a year ago in 2015.

Affected by injury, yet determined

In these years, Nehwal has come to mean a great deal for Indian badminton. Her continuity has also accelerated the nation’s fortunes in the sport, which has recently seen a rise of shuttlers’ talent pool through the global ranks. This extrapolation of Nehwal’s contribution is then better focalised by her current year, in which she’s been brutally hampered by a knee injury. Though she has played only about half-a-dozen tournaments this year, beginning at the All England Open in March, Nehwal has won one title, at the Australian Open – a Super Series tournament – in June, against Yu Sun, who will be taking on PV Sindhu at the China Open in the final on Sunday. She’s also reached the semi-finals at the India and Malaysia Opens, in March and April respectively.

A few days ago, Nehwal’s poignant words about how she was re-adapting to the game and to finding her rhythm back on the court after her knee surgery, made for a troubling read. “I am going to think about the next one year, it is year-by-year now. My mind may change in the next one, two or three years, so for me it is just about how to take care of my body and be in good shape because these injuries are quite painful. Even if I win a tournament, the happiness is not so much because of the amount of pain the injury gives,” she said, indicating for perhaps the first time that the injury to her right knee that marred her performance at the Rio Olympics wasn’t a mere minor setback.

Her adding, “I will be more than happy if people think I am finished, it is nice in a way, people think a lot about me, maybe now they won’t,” made for a far looming line-of-thought that she was contemplating hanging up her racquet for good. Her spirited fight in her first-round loss at the China Open at the start of this week, however, did quell the idea conclusively. Playing in her first tournament, where she’s been a former champion and the first Indian player to do so in 2014, nearly three months after being operated on her knee, the world No. 6 lost out to the 13th-ranked Porntip Buranaprasertsuk from Thailand, 16-21, 21-19, 14-21.

Need to support her all the more

Her readiness to push herself, even if it’s in slow paces at this stage, is a commitment that not only needs to be readily accepted. It merits a promise too in return. A promise to keep backing her, even in the face of her worst adversity.

To do so otherwise would be countering all that she’s represented and all those times when there were unending chants, egging her on. Though it wouldn’t be a novel development if it were to occur. In what’s long been an ironic and paradoxical norm in our country, where sportspersons are idolised upon developing that connect with them, surprisingly all it takes is a few poor performances before their idolatry is cast aside and replaced by newer players.

Except for a brief episode during the Rio Games , such hasn’t been the manifestation yet with regard to Nehwal and her younger competitors, one of whom is PV Sindhu, who has had a year worth boasting about. However, as Sindhu’s power-packed showing continues and she shapes up her career timeline, distinctly as Nehwal, it would do well to extend the courtesy of being a foul-weather follower toward the latter. For, as long as she plays, no questions asked whatsoever.

It’s the least that a nation can do, for an athlete who raised the bar on the sporting domain high enough to bring a place in the Olympic medals podium, when all other medal-winning channels seemed to be ending. One after another, in quick-fire succession.