Press Trust of India
New Delhi, April 1: Defending champion Saina Nehwal took another step towards retaining her title when she played out of her skin to eke out a thrilling 19-21, 21-14, 21-19 win over Korea’s Sung Ji Hyun in the quarterfinals of the India Super Series badminton tournament here Friday at the Siri Fort Stadium.
However, it was end of the road for PV Sindhu as she squandered a one-game lead to go down to another Korean Bae Yeon Ju, 21-15, 15-21, 15-21 in 68 minutes in the quarterfinals.
Saina, who has beaten Sung five times in the past used her drops early on to catch the Korean at the forecourt. However, unforced errors and a few deceptive returns helped Sung to lead 8-4. The Indian came back again to lead 14-12, but the Korean with some accurate smashes managed to grab the lead at 18-17. She held on to it to win the first game 21-19.
In the second game, it was Saina all the way as she took a 6-2 lead early on. But Sung levelled the scores before an ankle injury forced her to take a break. That was the opening Saina needed as she led 11-7 at the break and soon extended it to 19-10 after resumption and she easily closed out the game.
In the decider, Sung lead 5-2 early on but she failed to rein her unforced errors as Saina soon turned it around at 8-6. At the interval, the Indian looked firmly in control with score reading 11-7 in her favour.
But Sung who was looking visibly tired found a second wind from somewhere and grabbed six points in a row to go up 13-11 after resumption. However, with chants of ‘Saina, Saina’, the Indian promptly levelled the scores at 14-all with a fine down the line smash.
It went that way till 17-all when Sung erred at the net to give Saina the lead. She promptly increased it to 20-17 when Sung twice hit the ball long. The Korean saved two match points, but on the third a fierce rally followed which Saina won after 28 strokes to seal victory in her favour.
After the match, Saina said she didn’t expect it to be such a tough match. “She (Sung) played really well. I didn’t expect her to do so many rallies actually. The last moments were actually very tense. Happy to have won.”
