Korea Open: Saina only Indian left in quarters

The Indian challenge at the season-opening Korea Open Superseries Premier was reduced to the familiar figure of Saina Nehwal.

In the opening session of second-round matches on Thursday, both of Saina’s compatriots – PV Sindhu and P Kashyap – lost to opponents against whom they might have fancied their chances. Sindhu was beaten 21-19 21-13 by Porntip Buranaprasertsuk of Thailand, Kashyap fought hard against seventh seed Hu Yun of Hong Kong in a 16-21 21-13 21-17 defeat.

However, Saina kept India’s flag flying at the event with a 21-16 21-9 demolition of Fu Mingtian of Singapore.

Kashyap won the first game rather easily as he led from the start, but Hu Yun rebounded in the second. The third was dominated by Kashyap early on, and he even led 13-10 and 16-14, but his challenge slowly withered from then on as Hu Yun found the energy to close it out at 21-17. The match took an hour and 17 minutes.

Saina took just 36 minutes to brush aside Fu Mingtian’s challenge. She will next take on one of two promising players – Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei or Han Li of China – in the quarterfinals. If the Indian can make it to the semifinals, she has a good chance of winning the title as the top two seeds – Li Xuerui and Wang Yihan – retired from their opening round matches yesterday. In fact, there were several retirements from the Chinese in the first round. Apart from Li and Wang, men’s singles second seed Chen Long and men’s doubles favourites Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng, all retired in the first round.