Saina crashes out of Malaysian Open

Kuala Lumpur: Olympic medallist Saina Nehwal’s run in the Malaysia Open ended with a straight-game loss to Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi in the women’s singles competition of the USD 700,000 world tour super 750 tournament here on Thursday.

The former world no 1 Saina went down 15-21, 13-21 to world no 2 Yamaguchi in 36 minutes at the Axiata Arena in Bukit Jalil, a suburb in Kuala Lumpur. This is Saina’s sixth straight loss to the Japanese in seven meetings. The only time Saina had defeated Yamaguchi was in the 2014 China Open.

Yamaguchi, who had struggled a bit against Saina during their last meeting at the Uber Cup Final, produced a dominating show as she led 9-2. Saina fought back to narrow the gap to 10-11 but the Japanese again jumped to an 18-11 advantage and eventually secured the opening game comfortably. In the second game, Yamaguchi again raced to an 8-2 advantage before shutting the door on the Indian.

Olympic and world championship silver medallist Sindhu brushed aside the challenge of Malaysia’s Ying Ying Lee 21-8 21-14 to set up a clash with Olympic champion and former world no 1 Carolina Marin. The 22-year-old Indian has a 5-6 head-to-head record against the Spaniard.

In men’s singles, fourth seed Srikanth saw off Chinese Taipei’s Wang Tzu Wei 22-20 21-12 in 36 minutes to take his head-to-head count to 3-0. The 25-year-old from Guntur, who had briefly become world no 1 in April, will clash with France’s Brice Leverdez tomorrow. The Indian had beaten the world no 22 French in three games at All England Championship this year.