Top Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal on Sunday lost the final match 13-21, 21-13, 6-21 to world number one and nemesis Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei.
Saina had earlier on Saturday qualified for women’s singles final of Denmark Open 2018 after beating Gregoria Tunjung of Indonesia.
Saina secured an easy win over Tunjung but lost to Tai.
Tai Tzu now has an overwhelming 13-5 career head-to-head record against Saina. Saina last defeated Tai Tzu in 2013 and since then the Chinese Taipei shuttler has been victorious in the last 11 matches between the two.
This year, world number 10 Saina has lost all her four matches against Tai Tzu, the last being the semifinal clash in the Asian Games in Jakarta in August.
In the men’s singles semifinals earlier on Saturday, Srikanth Kidambi was completely off-colour, especially in the second game, as he went down tamely to world number one Kento Momota of Japan in 42 minutes.
However, there was not much to separate between the two initially as they were locked 10-10. But from there on, Momota surged ahead by reeling off four straight points.
World number six Srikanth narrowed down the gap to 13-15 but the Japanese continued his momentum to make it 20-13 to have seven game points. The Indian saved three game points but it was just a matter of one shot for Momota to go 1-0 up in the match.
The second game was even worse for Srikanth as he trailed all along from 4-4. There was a brief period of a fightback from Srikanth when he made the score 9-11 but from there on the Japanese was unstoppable as he won the second game quickly to pocket the match.
(With PTI Inputs)
Source: Zee News