Having unexpectedly won the top prize in the national circuit a fortnight ago, Bangalore-based shuttler Sayali Gokhale finds herself in unfamiliar territory. With the women's singles title at the National Championships under her belt, she will now be under the microscope, the one everybody will want to beat. How she handles this new-found status will probably define where her career is headed.

But Sayali, 22, is not perturbed. “My game won't get affected,” she says, “but it's an additional responsibility. I have to maintain this level.”

Ever since (now world No.10) Saina Nehwal burst on to the junior scene some seven years ago as a world-class prospect, most of the other women's singles players have stayed in the shadows. With Saina, Aditi Mutatkar and Trupti Murgunde winning the few prizes on offer in the national circuit, Sayali, and others like her, have had to keep working without expectation of a big turnaround.

The defunct national circuit of 2008 gave them no opportunities to tilt at the big guns, and thus no opportunity to stake a claim in the national squad. “We had second thoughts about our career because there were few national-level tournaments in 2008,” Sayali says. “We wondered what we were training for. But I kept training for myself because I understood that in the end, only performance counts.”

The recently-held national championships were a great opportunity for all the second-rung players. Both Saina Nehwal and Aditi Mutatkar withdrew to recover from injuries. In their absence, Trupti Murgunde was expected to win, but Sayali ambushed her in a three-setter, and then went on to dismantle PC Thulasi in the final. Through the tournament she demonstrated her best abilities: fluid movement, excellent length, good courtcraft, and the willingness to stay in long rallies.

Sayali still retains some of the flavour of her junior days. Her striking characteristic on court is her feminine style – a graceful, stroke-filled game that looks out of sync with modern, hard-hitting badminton. Her game on court is an extension of her off-court personality, for she is a quiet, reserved character who never raises her voice and gets along with everybody.

She 'keeps the house' at the Bangalore flat she shares with fellow Padukone Academy trainees Aditi Mutatkar and Neha Pandit – she's obsessive about tidying the place, and she loves to cook. “She's a nice, homely girl,” says world no.38 Mutatkar, who, like Sayali, is from Pune. “If the cook doesn't come, she's the one who feeds all of us.”

But it's also these traits that make people wonder if she's too “soft” to become a top-level player. “She's not aggressive and that shows in training. She doesn't cross her limits, and that's something she will have to do if she has to progress at the international level,” says Mutatkar. “She's very hardworking and sincere, but she always stops at 100 percent, when you need to do 110 percent.”

The lack of aggression is something that even her childhood coach in Pune, Anil Modak, points out. She has a few more deficiencies to iron. Most believe that, with improved strength and endurance, she could at least be a world top-30 player. The national title might just be the fillip that her international career needed – and as such, it couldn't have come at a better time, or to a nicer person.