BWF World Superseries Final 2013: Saina Nehwal comprehensively beaten by Li Xuerui

Saina lost her second match to Li Xuerui

Saina Nehwal lost her second consecutive match in the BWF Superseries Finals 2013 at Kuala Lumpur today. Saina faced World No. 1 Li Xuerui from China in a crucial match for the Indian.

Li dictated the game from the beginning as she raced out to a lead early in the first game. But Saina was only trailing by two points and managed to keep pace with her opponent. The players went into the break with Li leading 11-9.

After that, however, the Chinese took complete control of the game and Saina had no answers to her opponent’s superior play. She also made a lot of unforced errors which did not help her cause. Li soon took the game 21-9 and a dejected looking Saina trudged back during the changeover trying to formulate a strategy for the second game.

The second game was similar to the first in many ways with the two players staying close initially. Saina, after trailing by two points, managed to level the scores at 5-5. However, two unforced errors into the net gave Li the advantage again as she opened up another lead.

Saina was made to work extremely hard by Li as she used a combination of deft drop shots and powerful hits to Saina’s backhand side to pin her back. This led to Saina being forced to cover a lot of ground and hence being caught off position repeatedly.

Even for the points that she won, she had to fight very hard or rely on mistakes from Li.

By now, the frustration was evident on Saina’s face as she was clearly being outclassed by Li as the World No. 1 raced away to a 19-11 lead. Saina did stage a bit of a fightback as she managed to win three points in a row aided by a lapse in concentration from Li.

The final rites were eventually completed by Li who managed to gather her concentration again and after reaching match point at 20-14, she finished the match with a powerful smash, again to Saina’s backhand side.

With this victory, Li has now won both her matches so far in Group B and has qualified for the semi finals.

Having lost both matches, Saina will have to wait for the result of the other match in the group between Bae Yeun Ju of Korea and Minatsu Mitani of Japan.

Saina will be hoping that Bae wins that match because then if she beats Bae in her final match and Mitani loses to Li, Saina has an outside chance of qualifying. If Mitani wins the game, then it’s all over, as Li Xuerui and Minatsu Mitani will qualify.

The final group match between Saina Nehwal and Bae Yeun Ju will take place tomorrow.