AGENCY
MACAU: Saina Nehwal and B Sai Praneeth crashed out in their respective quarterfinal matches to draw curtains on India’s challenge at the the Macau Open Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament, here today. Both Saina and Praneeth suffered straight-game losses against Chinese opponents in the women’s and men’s singles quarterfinals respectively.
Saina, who is slowly trying to come back to her best after recovering from a major knee injury which affected her Olympic campaign, found the going tough today, going down 17-21 17-21 lower-ranked Zhang Yiman of China in the women’s singles quarterfinal in a 35-minute clash. Later in the day Sai Praneeth toiled hard for half an hour before losing 19-21 9-21 to Jun Peng Zhao.
Saina erased the deficit after the interval with two points but the Chinese managed to grab a 14-12 advantage and then jumped to 19-12 lead. The Indian picked up four points to narrow the gap but Zhang soon surged to seal the game and the match in her favour. (PTI)