Thaindian News

Jakarta, June 16 (IANS) Two-time champion Saina Nehwal cruised to the women’s singles final at the Indonesian Open Super Series Premier badminton event here Saturday defeating South Korea’s Ji Hyun Sung here Saturday.

However, Parupalli Kashyap’s impressive run in the tournament ended with a loss to local favourite Simon Santoso in the men’s singles semi-finals.

World No.5 Saina took just 50 minutes to dispose of her opponent 22-20, 21-18 for her fourth straight final here after winning the tournament in 2009 and 2010 and finishing runner-up last year. She faces China’s Xuerui Li in the title match Sunday.

Xuerui beat compatriot and World No.1 Yihan Wang in the other semi-final.

Saina, just like her quarterfinals clash against another Chinese Shixian Wang, survived nervous moments before crossing the hurdle.

She squandered a comfortable 16-9 lead in the first game to let Ji Hyun Sung come back into the contest. The South Korean made it 17-17 before earning a game point on 20-19. Saina, however, was able to arrest her opponent’s momentum by taking the next three points.

Saina was put under pressure in the second game too. Trailing 13-16, she fought back by running through the next five points and closed out the match with a forehand smash.

On the other hand, Kashyap lacked the consistency he possessed in the earlier matches and went down 15-21, 12-21 to the World No.9.

The 26th-ranked Indian would be happy with his maiden last four finish in a Super Series Premier event where he stunned top seed Chen Long and beat another higher-ranked player, Hans-Kristian Vittinghus of Denmark.

Kashyap had raised hopes of another upset going into the semifinals but he could not put up a fight against Santoso, a player he is yet to beat in four meetings.

He had his moments in both the games but unforced errors, especially at the net, let him down.

It was 14-14 in the first game before Santoso gained a 18-14 lead to draw first blood in the match. Besides the lethal smashes and delightful net play, the home crowd cheering for him on every point added to hisa dvantage.

It seemed Kashyap would fight back after taking a 5-1 lead in the second game. But that wasn’t to be as he committed far too many errors at the net and failed to defend Santoso’s powerful smashes on most occasions.