Saina Nehwal wins 1st round thriller against Busanan in Denmark Open

World no. 1 Saina Nehwal survived a scare before prevailing over Thailand’s Busanan Ongbum-rungphan in the opening round of the the $650,000 Denmark Open Super Series Premier badminton tournament in Odense on Wednesday.

2012 champion Saina had beaten the Thai girl at the Japan Open this year but those results mattered little as the two squared up in their first game of the tournament. With this win in 39 minutes, 2014 World Championships bronze medallist and world No. 18 Minatsu improved her head-to-head report to 4-5 towards the 2015 World Championships silver medallist and 2012 London Olympics bronze medallist from Hyderabad.

In men’s singles, Srikanth was up against compatriot Jayaram and it was the former who came up with a better performance as he notched up a 21-10 21-14 win in a 32-minute match here.

However, the women’s doubles pairing Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa went down to Japan’s Reika Kakiiwa and Miyuki Maeda 19-21, 18-21.

Top Indian men’s doubles pair of Manu and Sumeeth, who reached the finals of Dutch Open last week, put up a courageous fight before going down 19-21 22-20 19-21 to eight seeds Lee Sheng Mu and Tsai Chia Hsin of Chinese Taipei.

The opening game saw the Thailand player take the lead from the 4-4 mark, but Saina fought back very well to assume control of proceedings from the 10-10 mark, even as Ongbumrungphan tried to stay in the game.

In the second game, Mitani humbled Saina with a few good moves and smashes and finally stamped her authority on the game. Saina tried to catch up but the world No. 17 Thai broke off at 9-9 and never looked back to roar back into contest. After the break, Saina changed gears and zoomed ahead with a five-point burst at 13-12 to move to a 18-12 lead. The Thai girl narrowed the gap but could not bridge it.