New Delhi, April 17 (Inditop.com) Deafening crowd support failed to spur an error-prone Saina Nehwal as she stumbled against China’s Xuerui Li 17-21, 11-21 in the semi-finals of the women’ singles in the Badminton Asia Championships at the Siri Fort Complex here Saturday.
Top seeded Saina’s departure ended the home challenge in the championships, that conclude Sunday. This was the 20-year-old Indian’s best performance in the event, which has now turned into an all-Chinese affair.
In the women’s singles final, unseeded Xuerui will take on qualifier Xin Liu, who swept aside second seed Zhou Mi of Hong Kong 21-15, 21-18 in the other semi-final.
World and Olympic Champion Lin Dan will take on unseeded Wang Zhengming in the men’s final.
Second seeded Lin beat Thailand’s fifth seeded Boonsak Ponsana 22-20, 21-10 while Wang upset sixth seeded All England Open finalist Kenichi Tago of Japan 21-14, 19-21, 21-16 in a thrilling encounter.
The Chinese players underlined their supremacy in world badminton despite their top five world-ranked players skipping the tournament in women’s singles.
Saina, the only surviving Indian in the Championships after the Friday exits of top seeded mixed doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and V. Diju and the two doubles combinations, was a pale shadow of her form in the tournament.
The Hyderabadi put up a strong fight in the first game but went through the motions in the second as the Chinese cruised ahead unchallenged.
The two were neck and neck in the first game with Saina coming up with soft touches, using the drop shots and the net dribble to score over the Chinese teenager. However, she faltered in her anticipation of Xuerui’s returns as the Chinese mixed her drops with some powerful smashes to go a game up.
Saina opened up a 3-1 lead in the second game, much to the delight of a sizeable audience that egged her on vociferoulsy. But it turned out to be a brief recovery. Xuerui was quick to make it 3-3 and soon widened the gap with a 14-5 lead as Saina slumped to a rash of errors. It was just a matter of time when Xuerui grabbed a match point at 20-11 and it was all but over for the Indian.
Saina said she ran out of ideas against her Chinese opponent.
“I was not focused. I was playing well in the first game but I do not know what happened in the second. I was just pushing myself for points but nothing was working out for me,” a dejected Saina said.
The 19-year-old Xuerui, a 2008 Asian Junior Champion, said it looked Saina was under pressure.
“I had only heard about Saina as she had beaten some Chinese player during the Indonesian Open. But I was playing her for the first time,” she said.
“Both of us were making a lot of errors in the match and it came down to who made the least number of mistakes. Also, it seemed that Saina was under pressure.”
rounak