Press Trust of India
Fuzhou (China), Nov 15: Saina Nehwal’s dream of defending her women’s singles title came crashing as she suffered a straight-game defeat to Olympic champion Li Xuerui in the final of the USD 7,00,000 China Open Super Series Premier badminton tournament, here Sunday.
A tired and lethargic Saina, committed a large number of unforced errors to go down 12-21, 15-21 against the current World No. 7, in a match that lasted 39 minutes at the Haixia Olympic Sports Centre here.
Up against an opponent against whom she has lost nine times in the past, Saina failed to create pressure on Li who showed better understanding of the Indian’s game to outdo her for the 10th time.
In their 12th meeting, Saina initially used her knowledge of the conditions to her advantage to zoom to a 4-1 lead early on but she committed too many unforced errors after that for Li to take control of the match. She missed a number of easy shots as Li took six points in a row to move ahead 7-4. Then she exploited Saina’s comparatively weaker backhand side to go ahead 11-6 at the break.
The Chinese continued to maintain pressure and moved ahead to 19-10 before closing out the first game easily.
In the second game, Saina surged ahead to a 4-0 lead once again. Playing their fifth final of the year, Li and Saina were engaged in engrossing rallies and even though Li came up with some spectacular shots, she also committed some mistakes to allow Saina lead 11-6 at the interval.
However, Li changed gears after the break and came up with sharp smashes and drops to reel off seven points to surpass Saina and make it 13-12 in her favour. That was the end of Saina’s aspirations.
