Xuerui Li hammers Saina Nehwal in Women’s Singles quarter-final of the Thailand Open GP Gold 2011
China’s Xuerui Li has trounced India’s Saina Nehwal in the Women’s Singles quarter-final of the Thailand Open GP Gold 2011, at Bangkok, on Friday, June 10.
The World Number 16 Chinese shuttler, who is also the seventh seed in this event, took only 30 minutes to crush the World Number Four and top seed, Saina, in a straight-set battle.
In the opening game, Xuerui quickly reached at 4-1 by playing at a great pace. Saina could not play better badminton in the start of the set and her quivering start helped the Chinese to take a wonderful lead of 11-5, at the end of the first-half.
After getting back from the interval, the Chinese continued her game in the same aggressive fashion against the top seed of the event. She showed no mercy to the Indian and reached at a comfortable lead of 17-7. Saina was struggling to return the perfectly
placed strokes of her opponent.
The Indian shuttler tried to reduce the huge gap of points, but failed to stop a spirited Xuerui, who finished the first game in just 13 minutes with a stunning score of 21-13.
Saina, who is currently the World Number Four player, opened the second set in an attacking manner, as she reached 3-1 in no time. However, the seventh seed Chinese made a strong comeback to level the score at 4-4. Xuerui was playing quite comfortably, as
she was not facing any sort of strong resistance from Saina.
The Chinese established a comfortable difference of 9-5 and pushed the Indian on the back foot. However, Saina recovered from a four-point deficit to level the score by reaching at 10-10. At the end of the first-half of the second set, Xuerui was leading
the game by a score of 11-10.
After taking a short break of one minute, Xuerui became quicker and started to dictate the pace of the game. Her control over the rallies was remarkable, which kept her rival under extreme pressure. Xuerui scored eight consecutive points and finished the
set by a surprising margin of 21-12, in 17 minutes. The ending score of this one-sided 30-minute match was 21-13 and 21-12.
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