PTI
Rio de Janeiro, August 14: In one of the biggest upsets for the Indian Olympic contingent, medal hope Saina Nehwal crashed out of the Rio Games here Sunday after suffering a straight-game loss against lower-ranked Maria Ulitina of Ukraine in her second Group G match.
However, Indian badminton hopes received a boost when Kidambi Srikanth entered the men’s singles pre-quarterfinals with a 21-6, 21-8 win over Sweden’s Henri Hurskainen in a match that lasted 34 minutes.
The World No. 11 Indian, who had won the 2014 China Open and 2015 India Open, stamped his authority with his strokes and also pushed his rival to make mistakes.
In another match in Group M of the women’s singles, PV Sindhu, however, managed to eke out a 19-21, 21-15, 21-17 win over Glasgow Commonwealth Games champion Li Michelle in a gruelling 72-minute match. After losing the first game narrowly, Sindhu came back strongly in the next two to win the group and advance to the pre-quarterfinals.
Meanwhile World No. 5 Saina, who had inflammation on her right knee, lost 18-21, 19-21 to World No. 61 Maria in a match that lasted 39 minutes at the Pavilion 4 Riocentre here.
Maria, who had beaten Lohanny Vicente in the opening match, reached the knockout stage from the group at the expense of Saina and the Brazilian girl.
The Indian looked totally rusty as she squandered an initial 6-1 lead to allow Maria level the scores at 8-8. The Ukraine player posed a lot of questions as Saina missed a few shots in the forecourt and back. Even though Saina entered the first break with a slender 11-9 lead, but after that she was always playing the catch up game.
Maria caught up again at 13-13 when Saina hit long. She then took a 16-15 lead and increased it to 20-17 in a flash. Her net dribbles and long reach was constantly bothering Saina. The Indian then hit wide to allow Maria go up 1-0.
In the second game, Maria used her height to good use as she played some sharp and stiff smashes and half smashes which Saina failed to negotiate.
Maria dominated the pace of the rallies and at 19-all hit a crosscourt smash to reach point and closed out the tie with a lucky net chord.
“I had a knee pain and could not give my best. It was heavily strapped, and I tried my best. My movements were not smooth and were painful. It’s also heartbreaking loss. I also feel very bad about it,” Saina said after the match.The injury according to her happened during training before the Olympics and it got worse during the first match. “The injury happened during training and got aggravated after coming here,” informed the Indian shuttler.
The question however, is why had she kept quiet all along about her injury till her loss. Only Saina will be able to answer that.
