Saina scores hard-fought win to enter title round

 Second seed Saina overcame Youn 21-19, 13-21, 21-14 in the semifinals. The Hyderabadi will meet the winner of the match between Germany’s Juliane Schenk, the third seed, and unseeded South Korea’s Ji Hyun Sung in the title round on Sunday.

Saina had to sweat it out in the first game which she won 21-19. However, Youn came back strongly to level the scores by winning the second game 21-13 to push the match to the decider. In the deciding third game, Sian raised her game by couple of notches to canter home 21-14 with the match taking just under an hour.

In the day’s earlier quarterfinal matches, Saina registered a comfortable win over Bulgarian Petya Nedelcheva 21-12, 21-11.

In the men’s section, Ajay Jayaram’s run came to halt when he went down to fourth seed Sung Hwan Park of South Korea 21-19, 21-19 in the quarterfinals.