Nozomi Okuhara of Japan returns to Spain’s Carolina Marin in their women’s singles of the World Superseries Finals in Dubai on Friday. Okuhara won 21-9, 21-15. — AFP
Nozomi Okuhara of Japan returns to Spain’s Carolina Marin in their women’s singles of the World Superseries Finals in Dubai on Friday. Okuhara won 21-9, 21-15. — AFP
India’s challenge ended at the BWF Superseries Finals after Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth lost their respective women’s and men’s singles matches in contrasting styles here on Friday.
Having won one match and lost one, Saina had to win her final league match against Tai Tzu-ying of Chinese Taipei on Friday but she squandered one-game advantage to go down 21-16, 18-21, 14-21 in a battle that lasted 50 minutes to bow out of the tournament.
Earlier, Srikanth, who had already exited after losing Thursday’s match, continued with his poor run of form as he suffered his third successive defeat in the men’s singles, losing to Chinese Taipei’s Chou Tien-chen 17-21, 13-21 in a 32-minute contest.
With Saina losing two out of three matches, Carolina Marin and Nozomi Okuhara have advanced to the next round. Three players have finished with one win and two losses each. Saina missed the cut after taking into account of games won versus games lost.
Okuhara, having won all three matches, emerged on top while Marin’s record of 3-4 (-1) stands to be the second best in the group.
The Olympic bronze medallist Saina had everything to play and she showed her determination in a draining hard-fought match, but unfortunately she failed to sustain till the end.
Earlier, the 22-year Srikanth old from Guntur, who had a 1-0 record against the Taipei player, having beaten him at Hong Kong Open, struggled with his strokes.
Srikanth proved no match to his opponent, winning just 30 points as compared to 42 by the Taipei shuttler. In the opening game, the Taipei player opened up a 3-0 lead and kept on extending it. He continued his form in the second game to clinch the tie.
