Indian shuttlers Saina Nehwal and B Sai Praneeth lost their respective matches
Saina Nehwal
Macau: Indian shuttlers Saina Nehwal and B Sai Praneeth lost their respective matches in straight sets to crash out of the Macau Open Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament here yesterday.
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Saina lost 21-12, 21-17 in just 35 minutes to Zhang Yiman of China in the quarter-finals of the women’s singles competition. There was disappointing news for Indian fans in the men’s singles as well with Praneeth losing his quarter-final clash 19-21, 9-21 to Zhao Jun Peng of China.
Saina was made to struggle as Zhang dominated right from the start before closing out the tie with ease.Later in the day, Praneeth started his challenge in the last eight stage in confident fashion, taking a 4-0 lead in the opening game. Zhao soon fought back with the lead changing hands repeatedly till 18-18 when two back to back points handed the advantage to the Chinese.
Praneeth managed to save one game point by reducing the deficit to 19-20, but could not prevent Zhao from winning the opening game. The second game was a one-sided affair as Zhao continued to dominate as Praneeth’s
challenge fizzled away.