India's campaign in the women's singles came to an end at the USD 500,000 Malaysia Super Series Premier badminton event after both Saina Nehwal and P V Sindhu lost their respective second round matches in contrasting styles, here today.
While Olympic bronze medallist Saina fought hard before going down 21-16 10-21 19-21 to a lower-ranked Yao Xue of China in a 56-minute contest, Sindhu lost to sixth seed Yeon Ju Bae of Korea 16-21 19-21 in 45 minutes at the Putra Stadium.
World No. 8 Saina, who had endured a tough season last year as she could not win a single title, failed to turn around her fortunes in her season opener here.
Saina lived up to her billing in the first game as she faced little trouble in overcoming World No. 25 Xue.
Despite it being a close affair till 12-12, Saina kept her calm to seal the opening game 21-16.
But the Indian was in for a rude shock in the second game as the Chinese girl maintained an upper-hand throughout. Saina, surprisingly, could not catch her opponent even once during game two.
After taking the initial lead, Xue simply kept on moving ahead and opened up a massive gap. She eventually sealed the second game without breaking a sweat.
In the decider, Saina got her act together and took a 7-4 lead before moving to 10-8.
But Xue came back strongly to level the scores at 10-10 before slowly opening up a gap at 18-14.
Saina, however, showed a lot of character as she fought back to pocket three successive points and reduce the margin to 17-18 before catching up with her rival at 19-19.
But the Chinese raised her game when it mattered the most and bagged two quick points to stun her fancied Indian opponent.
