Saina reaches China Open semis

Overall, the 25-year-old Saina took home 42 of 71 points played in the match.

Fuzhou (China), Nov 12 (PTI) Defending champion Saina Nehwal emerged as the lone Indian survivor at the United States dollars 700,000 China Open Super Series Premier after P V Sindhu suffered a close defeat in the pre-quarterfinals of the women’s singles competition here today.

Other top seeded players in the women’s singles Carolina Marin of Spain (2), Ji Hyun Sung of Korea (3) and Tzu Ying Tai of Chinese Taipei (4) lost their respective quarter-final matches to the Chinese trio of Shixian Wang, Xuerui Li and Yihan Wang of China respectively.

Playing the second game, Saina took complete control of the game aided by the fact that the drift was in her favor. Saina will meet Malayisa’s Jing Yi Tee in the next round on Thursday.

Okuhara twice hit long as Saina led 11-8 at the break. The Chinese once again broke off and led 16-12, but the Indian reeled off six points to move to 20-17, before closing the opening game.

The opening game saw the Japanese dominate proceedings as she took a 5-2 lead before Saina came back to first square the score at 5-5 and then take the lead in the game. The Indian waited for her rival to commit the errors. But Saina didn’t panic and kept increasing the gap riding on the Japanese’ errors – who in desperstion hit plenty of shots outside and at net.