Saina marches into quarters

Indian ace eases past Tzu as her compatriots fall by the wayside

Saina, seeded fifth in the prestigious tournament, beat unseeded Tzu Ying Tai 21-17, 21-17 in a second round match that lasted 30 minutes.

In the quarterfinals, she will meet Eriko Hirose of Japan, who beat Salakjit Ponsana of Thailand 21-13, 18-21, 21-13 in another second round match on Thursday night.

Saina dominated her rival at the nets and in smashes, and in both the games she was the one who made the final flourish after a stiff contest.

The first game saw neck-on-neck tussle between the two as they were standing locked at 8-8 and then 14-14. But after that, Saina won five consecutive points to race to 19-14 before taking the game.

In the second game also, there was a stiff fight from the Chinese Taipei player and the two were locked 17-17 before Saina took four consecutive points to wrap up the match.
Saina is now the only Indian shuttler left in the tournament as all her compatriots have already crashed out.

In the mixed doubles section, V Diju and Jwala Gutta lost to fifth-seeded Chinese pair of Tao Jiaming and Qing Tian 11-21, 12-21 in a second round match. In the women’s doubles category, the Indian duo of Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa suffered heartbreak as they lost to Denmark’s Line Damkjaer Kruse and Marie Roepke 17-21, 21-19, 21-18 in a hard-fought second-round match that lasted 53 minutes.

In the men’s doubles event, Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas lost to eighth-seeded Indonesian pair of Mohammad Ahsan and Bona Septano 16-21, 16-21 in the second round.