Newly-crowned world No. 1 Saina Nehwal edged out China’s Sun Yu to reach the women’s singles semifinals of the $500,000 Malaysia Open Super Series Premier badminton tournament here on Friday.
The third-seeded Indian recorded a 21-11, 18-21, 21-17 win over Sun in a quarterfinal that lasted an hour and 11 minutes.
In the next match on Saturday, Olympic bronze medallist Saina will meet reigning Olympic champion Li Xuerui, who battled past former World champion Wang Yihan 14-21, 21-15, 21-12 in 55 minutes.
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Li Xuerui had withdrawn from the BWF World Super series last year due to an injury and also skipped the India Open last week.
The two-time World championship silver medallist has defeated Saina eight times, while the Indian has won twice — the 2010 Singapore Open and 2012 Indonesia Open.
Saina, who had a 2-1 record going into Friday’s match, stamped her authority right from the start as she didn’t give the Chinese any easy points.
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Brimming with confidence after her India Open triumph and ascent to world No. 1, Saina zoomed ahead to 12-4 with an eight-point burst and never looked back.
He grabbed the first game rather comfortably.
World No. 15 Sun, however, made a flying start in the second game, opening up a 7-1 lead early on but Saina soon caught up at 14-14.
Sun then slowly started to distance herself from the Indian and made a successful return to the match.
A jolted Saina recovered in no time and surged to an 11-4 lead at the break in the decider.
After the interval, Sun reeled off seven straight points from 8-14 to wrest a slender lead. The duo battled till 17-17 before the Indian slammed the door on the Chinese with four points on the trot.
Saina has been on a roll ever since winning the China Open last year.
She clinched the Syed Modi Grand Prix Gold, reached the final of All England championship, before winning the India Super Series last week.
The results:
Quarterfinals:Women: Saina Nehwal bt Sun Yu 21-11, 18-21, 21-17; Li Xuerui bt Wang Yihan 14-21, 21-15, 21-12; Wang Shixian bt Nozomi Okuhara 21-19, 15-21, 22-20; Carolin Marin bt Cheung Ngan Yi 21-9, 21-9
Men: Chen Long bt Kento Momota 21-16, 21-11; Jan Jorgensen bt Wei Nan 21-9, 21-15; Lin Dan bt Tian Houwei 11-21; 21-16, 21-13; Wang Zhengming bt Kue Song 21-16, 21-16.