The Indian challenge at the Australian Open Super Series badminton tournament ended after ace shuttler Saina Nehwal suffered a straight-game defeat against China’s Shixian Wang in the women’s singles quarterfinals here on Friday.
World No. 1 Saina suffered a 21-15, 21-13 loss to the two-time All England champion and fifth seed Shixian in a 41-minute clash.
It was Saina’s sixth defeat against the Chinese in 12 meetings.
In the opening game, Saina had grabbed a slender lead of 4-2 but Shixian soon wrested control of the match and went into the break at 11-8.
Slowly and steadily, Saina clawed back to 14-14 but a ruthless Shixian reeled off six straight points to and then pocketed the match without much ado.
In the second game, Shixian opened up a three-point lead at 6-3.
The Indian tried to arrest the slide and went neck and neck from 6-6 to 10-10 but after that the Chinese moved ahead with giant steps to once again leave Saina behind.
