Saina Nehwal falters in All-England quarters

Olympic bronze medallist Saina Nehwal exited the $400,000 All England Open Badminton Championships when she lost her women’s singles quarter-final match

Birmingham: Olympic bronze medallist Saina Nehwal exited the $400,000 All England Open Badminton Championships when she lost her women’s singles quarter-final match against China’s Shixian Wang at the National Indoor Arena here.

Saina Nehwal. Pic/Getty Images.

The seventh seed lost to World No 3 Shixian 17-21, 10-21 in 43 mins of the Super Series Premier on Friday. With this win, the Chinese bettered her head-to-head with Saina to 3-4.

Fourth seed Shixian will next play compatriot and former world champion Yihan Wang in the semi-finals. This is World No 7 Saina’s third quarter-final loss at the prestigious tournament while her previous best performances here were reaching the semi-finals in 2010 and 2013. Only two Indians, Prakash Padukone and P Gopichand, have won this tourney.

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