Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal defeated her closely matched opponent Wang Shixian from China, 21-16, 21-19 to sail through to the semi-finals of the 2016 Badminton Asia Championships.
Wuhan Sports Center in China, today, witnessed another entertaining showdown between seasoned badminton rivals. With 7 wins out of the previous thirteen head-to-head contests, the Chinese World No. 5 had a slight edge over her Indian counterpart, seeded 5th in the ongoing tournament.
Coming off Thursday's pre-quarter final victory over Thailand's Nitchaon Jindapol, Saina started strongly in today's outing once again, seizing the opening three points of the match. In the following minutes, despite Shixian's gearing up and matching her with multiple rallies, the Indian, soon, pulled away to close the first game 21-16.
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As the second game began, the Indian capitalized on several weaker returns from Shixian and claimed a three-point lead right away. Wang, however, immediately pulled back to get even and surpass Nehwal as the scores stood 11-9 in her favour, halfway into the game.
Next, it required a tenacious effort from Saina Nehwal, down 16-14 at one stage, to break even and subsequently, take the game 21-19 to finish off a resounding victory in straight sets.
