By Riddhi Acharya

Copyright sportskeeda

Saina Nehwal recently shared a major update about her retirement. The Indian revealed why she has stopped playing competitively in recent years, while outlining her goal for the future.Over the past decade, Nehwal has been one of the leading faces of Indian badminton. The 35-year-old’s career has seen her script several firsts for the nation, including becoming the first Indian shuttler to have won an Olympic medal and reach the finals of the World Championships.In recent years, Saina Nehwal has been plagued by injury issues, particularly in her right knee. While the former World No.1 is yet to announce her retirement, she recently shared a major update about the future of her playing career, telling Rediff,”Last two years have been tough and I got arthritis in my right knee so I decided to stop playing. It is very tough to play at the highest level when you need to practice for so many hours and your knee is not ready for that. I just felt that it is tough to compete at the highest level, so I decided to stop and now I am happy that I can motivate a lot more youngsters to play many more different sports.”The last time Newhal was seen in action was at the 2023 Singapore Open, where she made an opening round exit after losing to Ratchanok Intanon in straight games.Saina Nehwal weighs in on Indian badminton’s future, demands consistency from youngstersSaina Nehwal at the Viksit Bharat Run (Image Source: Getty)For a long time in her career, Saina Nehwal was the sole flag bearer of Indian badminton. She was eventually joined by PV Sindhu. Now, with Nehwal and Sindhu but drawing closer to the ends of their careers, Indian badminton has been looking for its next women’s singles star.Weighing in on the future of the nation’s shuttlers, Nehwal demanded more consistency from youngsters, telling Rediff,”I can say that in the women’s category we need more youngsters to do well. (In) men’s we have Lakshya (Sen), Priyanshu (Rajawat), (HS) Prannoy, (and Kidambi) Srikanth who are there. But in the women’s category we only have Sindhu at the moment. The youngsters still are picking up, they are doing well. But I don’t see them consistent enough still.”Outside of PV Sindhu, India currently has six women’s singles players ranked within the BWF top 50. Unnati Hooda and Malvika Bansod are leading the charge as they sit at World No.31 and 33, while the likes of Rakshitha Sree Santhosh Ramraj, Anupama Upadhyay, Tanvi Sharma, and Akarshi Kashyap also show promise.