Talk about Spain and you will automatically be talking about Real Madrid or Barcelona. Spaniards have never hidden their passion to watch anything and everything happening around the Camp Nou stadium. Tennis is next in line but badminton is certainly not in the priority list of these sports fans.
But things have slowly starting moving upward in last one year or so. The rise of 21-year-old shuttler Carolina Marin from Huelva has forced every Spaniard to change the way they look at the game.
From a mere fun game, Martin has successfully changed it to a serious sport. Her explosive game has inspired a whole lot of generation back home to take up the sport. Her loss in the Indian Open on Saturday to Thai prodigy Ratchanok Intanon was certainly not the kind of result she was looking at as she was seriously targeting the World No. 1 spot.
But the World and All England champion is happy that a change at the top --- even though Saina has attained it --- will make a huge difference in the results of future tournaments.
"I know what would that (No. 1 ranking) mean to any country (she spoke before losing her semifinal game). Of course, that's one of my targets. This would certainly create a lot of interest amongst sports lovers back home," Marin told dna.
With her last few results, Marin has already ensured badminton has got a boost back home after becoming the first ever Spaniard to win the BWF World Championship and the coveted All-England crown.
She was merely an eight-year-old when she took on to flamenco dancing as her first love. It was just a sheer coincidence that Marin picked up the shuttle sport as she wandered into a badminton court alongside one of her friends some 13 years ago.
The route to badminton success hasn't been easy for her. Marin did not have a number of compatriots to practice alongside her in Spain. There simply wasn't that sort of pool to pick from. With limited training resources, Marin decided to spend majority of her time training in Thailand and Indonesia so as to take her game to the next level.
"It's difficult because I don't have many practice partners. It is not like China, India or Indonesia where there are more training facilities. When I practice, it is usually with the male players," she told dna.
