On Friday, Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal moved past her Indian competitor P V Sindhu to pave her way to the semi-finals of $3,50,000 Indonesia Masters World Tour Super 500 with 21-13, 21-19 head-to-head score.
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Former World No 1 Saina Nehwal proved that in the end, experience matters and displayed her supremacy over Olympic medalist and second seeded P V Sindhu at the Indonesia Masters with a straight victory. Today at the match, Saina Nehwal took the lead with 3-0 score within just few minutes of the first round against Sindhu, and never let the advantage slip in throughout the match. Although, Sindhu managed to catch-up with 4-4 but Saina overpowered and continued her hike with a lead of 11-9 till the half-time bell struck. The short break proved out to be a quick charge-up for Nehwal as she swung back with an added lead of 18-10 and after that, both were able to gain three points each before Nehwal claimed win in the first round.
The second round turned out to be pretty intriguing as it started off with a fierce neck-to-neck score of 3-3 in initial minutes. Soon, Sindhu jumped back to power and surprised everyone with a lead of 10-5 after a straight loss in first match. But the 27-year-old shuttler simply didn’t give up and clawed back to 10-10, yet once again, Sindhu managed an extra point with 11-10 by half-time break. Both ladies not losing it, managed 14-14- but soon Nehwal caught up the game and sprinted to a lead of 15-14 and eventually 17-14 and the match progressed to make a score of 21-19, marking a victory for Saina Nehwal in the quarter finals of Indonesia Master – all this in 37 minutes.
With this win, Saina Nehwal has made her way to the semi-final of the tournament and will face Thai fourth seed Ratchanok Intanon on Saturday. Ratchanok has dumped off Glasgow World Champion Nozomi Okuhara of Japan with 21-17, 21-10 to reach the semi finals. However, Nehwal has an 8-5 head-to-head record against Ratchanok, which means the weights are on Nehwal’s side. Let’s see what happens on Saturday – that is tomorrow.
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