Heath Matthews, the physio who treated Nehwal's knee, says she'll return to peak training soon
Saina sustained the knee injury in August and it got aggravated during the Rio Olympics. Pic/Getty Images
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India badminton star Saina Nehwal (26) is currently working very hard at her Hyderabad home to recover from a surgical repair of a chipped right knee. But contrary to popular belief that the injury will have Nehwal on the backfoot, the man who has helped her onto her feet, city-based Sir HN Reliance Foundation Hospital's head of sports medicine, Heath Matthews, believes she will be a much better player than what she was before the injury at the Rio Olympics.
'Saina has plenty of time'
"Badminton players nowadays have a packed calendar and get only a few days between tournaments to work on their strength and fitness. Saina can utilise this time to work on many other things besides her knee. There could be a niggle that needs attention or some flexibility or movement issue with another body part. She has ample time to work on that now, which means, when she returns to court, she will be a lot fitter, faster and stronger than she was when she hurt herself at the Olympics," Matthews told mid-day recently. A case in point here is India's men's singles badminton star Ajay Jayaram (29).
Saina posted this picture on Twitter to thank Heath for helping her out with the knee rehab
"In 2014, Ajay underwent a shoulder surgery, and seven months later he achieved his best result by winning the Dutch Open Grand Prix," says Matthews, who has previously been with the Indian boxing and wrestling teams besides having spent time working on tennis stars Sania Mirza, Mahesh Bhupathi and Beijing Olympics gold medal-wining shooter Abhinav Bindra.
Giving an update on Nehwal's current condition, Matthews says she has progressed into the final stages of her rehabilitation ahead of time. "We are currently in stage two of her rehab, which means she's moving out of the rehab stage and into the flexibility stage. Saina is currently working four hours a day on things like flexibility, mobility, stability, strength and balance. In stage three, she will train for six hours a day and finally, she will return to peak training of eight hours a day," he said.
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