Saina Nehwal to return to courts in November

Her recovery from a knee injury going smoothly, Saina Nehwal is hoping to return to the courts by the end of next month.

“Not before end (of) October, so I will miss tournaments till that time. I am world no. 8 at present, it may go down further,” Saina said.

“We have already done six weeks of rehab and still five to six more weeks are needed before I go to a court for practice”.

The 26-year-old, who won a bronze medal in the 2012 London Olympics, hopes to play tournaments scheduled for November if she is match-fit by then.

“May be tournaments slated in November if everything goes well,” she said, when asked which event she plans to play next.

Her rehab programme, following surgery to the right knee at a Mumbai hospital last month, has been going smoothly, she said.

Saina had sustained an intra-articular injury (inside the joint) to her right knee and a small fragment of bone has separated from her patella (kneecap), the doctors who treated her had said.

Jayaram, Praneeth advance In Seoul, Ajay Jayaram and B. Sai Praneeth advanced to the men’s singles second round of the Korea Open in what turned out to be a mixed day for India at the $600,000 Super Series badminton tournament on Wednesday.

While Jayaram and Praneeth crossed the opening hurdle, K. Srikanth, P. Kashyap, H.S. Prannoy and Tanvi Lad lost in gruelling three-setters.

Jayaram, who turned 29 on Wednesday, celebrated his birthday with a 23-21, 21-18, win over Korea’s Jeon Hyeok Jin in a 45-minute battle. Praneeth edged out Chinese Taipei’s Hsu Jen-hao 21-13, 12-21, 21-15 in another match.

However, eighth seed Srikanth suffered a narrow 10-21, 24-22, 17-21 defeat against Wong Wing Ki Vincent of Hong Kong, while Kashyap went down fighting to fourth seed Chinese Tian Houwei 22-20, 10-21, 13-21.