‘Leaving on my own terms’: Saina Nehwal retires after two-year injury break

Ending an era of excellence, Olympic medallist Saina Nehwal on Tuesday confirmed her retirement from competitive badminton. The former world No. 1 has been away from the circuit for nearly two years due to a chronic knee condition and last played a professional match at the Singapore Open in 2023.

Nehwal revealed that she chose not to make a formal retirement announcement at the time, believing her absence from competition spoke for itself.

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“I had stopped playing two years back. I actually felt that I entered the sport on my own terms and left on my own terms, so there was no need to announce it,” Nehwal said on the House of Glory podcast, hosted by Olympic shooter Gagan Narang.

Ending an era of excellence, Olympic medallist #SainaNehwal on Tuesday confirmed her retirement from competitive badminton. The former world No. 1 has been away from the circuit for nearly two years due to a chronic knee condition.
Read More- https://t.co/igjiSaJcqq #legend… pic.twitter.com/iGdKk8UtmF

— The Statesman (@TheStatesmanLtd) January 20, 2026

The 35-year-old explained that her decision to step away was driven by severe cartilage degeneration in her knees, which made sustained high-intensity training impossible.

“Your cartilage has totally degenerated, you have arthritis… I just told them, ‘Now probably I can’t do it anymore, it is difficult,’” she said.

Nehwal added that her body could no longer withstand the physical demands of elite-level badminton.

“You train eight to nine hours to be the best in the world. Now my knee was giving up in one or two hours. It was swelling and it became very tough to push after that. So I thought it’s enough. I can’t push it anymore,” she said.

Born in Haryana, Nehwal began playing badminton at the age of eight and trained at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium in Hyderabad. She made her international debut in 2003, winning the Junior Czech Open, and went on to become the junior world champion in 2008.

That same year, Nehwal scripted history by becoming the first Indian woman to reach the quarter-finals of the women’s singles event at the Beijing Olympics.

Her rise continued in 2009 when she became the first Indian to win a BWF Super Series title, clinching the Indonesia Open. A year later, she added the Commonwealth Games gold medal to her growing list of achievements.

Nehwal reached the pinnacle of her career at the London 2012 Olympics, where she won bronze in women’s singles, becoming the first Indian to claim an Olympic medal in badminton.

In 2015, she achieved another historic milestone by becoming the world No. 1, only the second Indian shuttler after Prakash Padukone to top the singles rankings. That year, she also won silver at the BWF World Championships, finishing runner-up to Carolina Marin.

Despite recurring knee injuries that affected her performance at the Rio 2016 Olympics, Nehwal continued to shine, winning bronze at the 2017 World Championships and gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Over the course of her illustrious career, Nehwal was also honoured with several prestigious national awards, including the Padma Bhushan (2016), Padma Shri (2010), Khel Ratna (2010) and the Arjuna Award (2009).