Indian ace shuttler Saina Nehwal continued her brilliant form of last year by venturing into the quarter finals of the Korean Open. However, there were no major results to boast for the Indian badminton contingent as the rest of the team failed miserably. High hopes were on Parupalli Kashyap and P V Sindhu. Both the players have let the fans down again by failing to reach the next round. The Hyderabad girl is now the lone Indian to carry the hopes with no other players remaining in the fray. Fans back home expect a superb feat from Saina again as she always managed to do so during previous instances.
Meanwhile, it was Kashyap who must be hugely disappointed with his paltry performance after he got down putting up a spirited display yet again as he lost to seventh seed Yun Hu of Hong Kong in a marathon match. Hu won the match 16-21, 21-13, 21-17 in one hour and 10 minutes to extend his career head-to-head against Kashyap to 2-0.
"I should have won today but was unlucky. At 16-14 in the third game, when I was leading, the string of one racket broke and my smash went in the net. Next again, one more racket string broke at 17-16 and again a smash went out," Kashyap told IANS.
P V Sindhu too could not reach the next round because of unable to display her usual game of dominance that she generally shows. Sindhu, who is touted as the future Saina could not hold the game and failed miserably.
As far as Kashyap’s game is considered, it rather went critically with no clear winner until they played the final game to almost death.
"Hu's a tricky player. In the next two points he hit good shots and won. Sometimes we aren't lucky. Anyway I'm happy I reached 11. I hope to better my performance at Malaysia Open next week," added the 26-year-old, who reached a career-best World No.11 Thursday.
Saina had a better draw with matches against players upon whom she has the capacity to win over for sure. In fact, she won 42 of the 67 points that he played in the last match. This itself shows about the kind of prolific form she is in. It is now highly contemplated that she will win over all her opponents in the upcoming games. Given the kind of easy draws she has been getting of late, winning should be a cakewalk for her.
World No.3 Saina was able to dominating game to exhaust up all the game plan resources of her opponent. If only the Indian ace could play with all this vigor, then winning major games would be just a formality for her.
Saina has been banking immensely upon her deceiving cross-court smashes that proved to be costly for her opponent winning her six points to Mingtian's one. The Olympic bronze medalist was also fluent at the net that she won seven points to none of the Indonesian.
In the quarterfinals, the Indian will be pitted against World No.26 Li Han of China, over whom Saina has a 2-0 head-to-head record.
