Saina Nehwal triumphed against second seed Nozomi Okuhara in straight games to advance to the semi-finals of the Malaysia Masters badminton tournament on Friday.
Kidambi Srikanth, however, squandered a one-game advantage to go down 23-21, 16-21, 17-21 to fourth seed Korean Son Wan Ho in the men’s singles quarter-finals that lasted an hour and 12 minutes.
Nehwal had to battle Okuhara for 48 minutes before winning the match 21-18, 23-21. The Indian seventh seed will take on Spain’s Carolina Marin, who beat South Korea’s Sung Ji Hyun 21-13, 21-13, in the semi-final.
Nehwal and Okuhara were tied at 9-9 before the latter surged to a 15-10 lead. The Indian, then, managed to bridge the gap at 17-17. Okuhara could muster only one more point in the first game.
The second game was more thrilling. Both players were locked at 21-21 and Nehwal held her nerves to clinch the match.
With the quarter-final win over Okuhara, Nehwal extended her head-to-head lead over the former to 9-4. She had back-to-back wins over the current world no 2 in the last two tournaments – last year’s Demark Open and the French Open.
Nehwal had won her first match against Hong Kong’s Joy Xuan Deng 14-21, 21-18, 21-18. In her second match, she beat Deng’s compatriot, Pui Yin Yip 21-14, 21-16.
Srikanth, who was unbeaten in the recently-concluded Premier Badminton League, had recovered from a 4-11 deficit to pocket the first game but he couldn’t breach a 4-9 gap in the second game to allow Son to take the game into the decider.
The seventh seeded Indian then wasted a 5-1 advantage in the third game to allow Son march ahead after leading 11-10 at the break.
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