India ace Saina Nehwal warmed up for the tough battle ahead with a comfortable straight-game victory over Dutch Jie Yao as she reached the women’s singles quarter-finals of the London Olympics, in London on Wednesday.
The 22-year-old Saina brought some cheer to the Indian camp on an otherwise dismal day as she clinically dismantled her Netherlands opponents with a 21-14, 21-16 scoreline in a tussle which lasted 40 minutes.
After her compatriot P Kashyap created history by becoming the first Indian to move into men’s singles quarter final, Saina kept her reputation intact by making it to the last-eight stage of the badminton competitions, that has been hit by scandal which had led to disqualification of four top teams.
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After two easy matches in the group stages, it was a good warm up for Saina, who will take on either two-time All England champion Tine Baun of Denmark or Sayaka Sato of Japan in the quarterfinals.
Up against the world No 20 Jie, Saina surged to a 11-5 lead and moved to the game point in a jiffy when the Dutch girl hit wide.
The Chinese-born girl saved a few game points, mainly because of the error of judgement by Saina and a couple of loose shots but soon the Indian pocketed the game with a beautiful net play.
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In the second game, Saina brought out her variations and involved Jie in rallies to lead 11-7 at the break. Jie fought back to narrow the gap to 14-12 but that didn’t affect the Indian as she moved ahead to 19-15 with a drop and then executed a cross court smash to earn the match point.
Jie won a net play but with her hitting out, Saina burst into celebration.