Saina enters Indonesia Masters final; Satwik-Chirag bow out
Jakarta, Jan 27 (IANS) Star Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal stormed into the final, while the men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty bowed out of the $350,000 Indonesia Masters World Tour Super 500 in the semi-final here on Saturday.
Saina, the 2012 Olympic bronze medallist, took 49 minutes to defeat the Thai fourth seed and former world champion Ratchanok Intanon 21-19, 21-19.
Saina, who now leads the head-to-head tie 8-5 against Ratchanok, will play the winner from the second semi-final between top seeded Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei and Chinese eighth seed He Bingjiao — in the final on Sunday.
Both the games remained close with Intanon taking a slender 3-1 lead in the beginning which was pulled back by Saina to level things at 5-5.
However, the Thailand shuttler took an upper hand to further take a 13-11 lead. In the closing minutes, Saina kept her calm to clinch the game.
In the second game, Saina dominated the proceedings from the onset to take an 17-11 advantage.
Failing to maintain the lead, the fourth seed came from behind to level things at 18-18 but gave away the game to Saina who looked contended to clinch the match.
Meanwhile, Satwik and Chirag ended their run in straight games against world No.1 pair Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo in the semi-finals.
The world No.32 failed to get their combination right and lost 14-21, 11-21 in half an hour.
The Indian pair had upset two top-10 players in the run to the semi-finals.