Saina Nehwal
Revenge indeed is sweet for the Indian star Saina Nehwal as she avenged her All England quarterfinal loss to Eriko Hirose with a thrilling three-game victory over the Japanese in the second round of the Wilson Swiss Open Super Series in Switzerland.
Second seed Saina beat Eriko 21-15, 17-21, 21-11 in a match which lasted close to an hour to set up a clash with sixth seed Bulgarian Petya Nedelcheva in the quarterfinals.
The World No 4, Saina defeated Eriko in a three-set thriller 21-15, 17-21, 21-11 in a match which lasted around 60 minutes. Next in line is the seed Bulgarian Petya Nedelcheva in the quarterfinals.
Nedelcheva, in her second round match, got the better of qualifier Karin Schnaase from Germany 21-12, 21-11 last night.
Eriko got off to a good start in the first game taking an early five-point lead at 9-4 but Saina made a brilliant comeback to pocket the opener.
However, the second game belonged to Eriko. Both players were neck and neck till 17-16, but the Japanese took four consecutive points to break even.
In the decider, world number four Saina didn’t give any chance to her rival and shut the match with ruthless precision moving to 13-5 first and then holding on to it as Eriko crumbled.
In men’s singles, Ajay Jayaram also managed to reach the quarterfinals with a hard-fought 15-21, 23-21, 21-19 win over 16th seed Hans-Kristian Vittinghus of Denmark. He will next play fourth seed Sung Hwan Park of Korea.
In the men’s doubles category, Indian pair of Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas got the better of sixth seeds Mads Conrad-Petersen and Jonas Rasmussen from Denmark 17-21, 21-15, 21-15 to march into the quarters.
The Indian duo will next take on fourth seeds Chieh Min Fang and Sheng Mu Lee of Chinese Taipei in the quarterfinals.
In women’s doubles, there was disappointment in store for Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa as they lost 16-21 12-21 to seventh seeds Shizuka Matsuo and Mami Naito in the pre-quarterfinals last night.
Tags: Ashwini Ponnappa, Badminton, Eriko Hirose, Jwala Gutta, Petya Nedelcheva, Saina Nehwal, Switzerland, Wilson Swiss Open Super Series
