New Delhi: There was a time when Ashmita Chaliha could only watch while fellow players were training, travelling and discussing their next tournaments.The Assam shuttler was confined to rehabilitation for a career-threatening medial meniscus tear in her right knee that she sustained during the 2024 Korea Open in Aug. She was repeating the same exercises day after day. Her racquet was largely out of reach, her competitive rhythm gone and her ranking slipped rapidly.For someone who had been ranked inside the world’s top 40, the slide was particularly painful. Ashmita eventually found herself outside the top 200, a point she describes as her “rock bottom”.But that low eventually became the starting point of a comeback that reached its latest high at Korea Masters this year, where she had a memorable run to claim the title on Aug 9.Looking back at the difficult period, Ashmita admitted that the biggest battle was not necessarily physical. “Preparing during my injury, like for rehab and stuff, it was more mentally than physically,” she said.“I was always doing the same thing while there was training and stuff. It was upsetting because you see other players preparing for the tournament and discussing the next plan, whereas I was just stuck there,” Ashmita recalled.Yet somewhere amid frustration and uncertainty, she found a different kind of motivation. She had little control over how quickly her body would recover, but she could control how she approached the road back.The first objective was not immediately to win a major title or chase a ranking. It was simply to find out whether she could compete again.Once she was cleared to return, she chose to ease herself back through smaller tournaments. The matches were as much a test of her physical condition as they were of her confidence.“Once I started to play, I was mostly getting back with small tournaments. I just wanted to know how fit I am or if I can compete with the good players,” she said.Those early tournaments helped rebuild something an injury can take away from an athlete just as quickly as fitness and belief.The Korea Open triumph was therefore more than another title on her resume. It represented the distance she had travelled from those lonely rehabilitation sessions, from watching others compete while she waited for her own opportunity.On making the comeback after losing the first game in the Korea Masters final, Ashmita said, “I was just in the game and taking one point at a time. I wasn’t thinking about whether I could win the match. I was just playing and seeing what happens. When I changed sides, it was better for me and my attack was going pretty well, so I stuck to that game.”There was no overnight transformation. Her return was built through patience, smaller competitions and the willingness to start again.And that is perhaps what makes the Korea Masters victory particularly significant. Ashmita did not simply return to the winner’s circle; she returned after experiencing how quickly an athlete can fall when injury takes away the one thing they live for and that is competition.She may not be part of India’s World Championships campaign in New Delhi this time, but her Korea Open triumph has offered a timely reminder of what she is capable of when healthy and confident.Playing at home can be a double-edged sword, the 26-year-old admitted. “It’s a mixed feeling. Firstly, it’s in your home country, so you want to win and get a medal for India,” she said. “That already builds a little bit of pressure, but it’s also very exciting to play in front of your home crowd. There will be additional support, and you wouldn’t want to let people down.”For an athlete who once felt stuck on the sidelines, the journey back has been about learning to move forward one tournament at a time. The rankings may have fallen, the road may have been frustratingly long, but Ashmita has shown that a career can be rebuilt from its lowest point. Sometimes, the comeback begins when all you can do is believe that your time will come.
