Sania Nehwal

Dec 11: Sania Nehwal who is currently World No 4, succeeded third time to reach out towards the final of the Super Series, by winning a very tough game against a very hard opponent and World No 6 from Germany Juliane Schenk. Sania overcame to the lost of second game and knocked out Juliane in the semi finals in the Hong Kong Super Series, by 21-19 17-21 21-9 to book herself a ticket to the finals, against the Asian Games Champion Wang Shixian of China. Besides in the other encounter, veteran Indonesian Taufik Hidayat continued his winning performance in the semi finals, by having a victory over the China Open winner Chen Long.

Hidayat will face a very tough opponent and World No1 Lee Chong Wei in the finals, who won the semi finals against Vietnamese Nguyen Tien Minh. Hidayat who is third seeded, had never beaten any top Chinese players in the past three years, but was successful this time conquering over Chen Long by 15-21, 21-11, 21-19. Sania have a record of 4-2 win against the Wang before the final encounter, including a win in the All England quarterfinals. Schenk was very much ahead in the first set by 12-8, until Sania finally came back strong and levelled her score to 12. The German again took the lead from there by 17-13, but was again unfortunate enough to win the first set as Sania powerfully got ahead by bagging four points.

In the second set Schenk was again in the lead position by 15-9 and this time she was successful to clinch the game at the end by 21-11. The final set was however was of Indian, as she powered herself through the game right from the start. Sania was positioned 11-3 and 13-6 and though German was good enough to narrow the gap by taking the three points in a row by 13-9, but at the end Sania taking six consecutive points made sure that German is beyond the reach to win the game.

Tags: Badminton, Hong Kong Super Series, Indian Sports, Juliane Schenk, Sania Nehwal, Sports, Sports India, Super Series