Top seed Saina Nehwal crashed out of the Macau Open Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament after suffering a straight-game loss against lower-ranked Zhang Yiman of China in the women's singles quarterfinal clash here today.
Former World No.1 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 to Zhang in a 35-minute clash.
Saina, who improved a place yesterday in the world rankings to be at number 10, seemed to have been affected by the gruelling three-game matches that she played in the last two rounds here.
19-year-old Zhang, who is ranked at World No. 226, took the early 4-2 lead and then held a slender 9-8 at one stage. The young Chinese soon reeled off five straight points to jump to a 14-8 lead and kept marching ahead as Saina lost the opening game.
Saina, who had bounced back after losing the opening game in the last two matches, seemed to have changed gears as she zoomed to a 6-0 healthy lead in the second game. But Zhang came back to level the score 7-7 and surpassed her fancied rival, reaching 11-9 at the break.
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.
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