Indonesia Masters | Saina Nehwal loses to Tai Tzu Ying, settles for silver

Indonesia Masters | Saina Nehwal loses to Tai Tzu Ying, settles for silver

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Indian ace Saina Nehwal lost to World no.1 Tai Tzu Ying for the seventh straight time as she went down 9- 21, 13-21 in a one-sided Indonesia Masters final, which took as less as 27 minutes to end. Nehwal has defeated Ying just once, back in 2013 Swiss Open, out of the ten face-offs they had so far.

Coming back from an ankle injury, the World No.12 did brilliantly to reach the Indonesian Masters final by overcoming the likes of PV Sindhu and Ratchanok Intanon, but couldn’t overcome Ying’s challenge, which who has been a thorn in her career.

The match was lob-sided from the very beginning as Ying jumped to a 10-2 lead early on in the game. Though the Indian shuttler salvaged a hard-earned point following a dominating rally, the Chinese Taipei star entered the break with a comfortable 11-3 lead. 

Despite Saina making a comeback post break to garner few points, it didn’t unsettle a calm Tai Tzu in any way whatsoever. And she proved it by emerging victorious at the end an enthralling 43-shot rally to lead the game 14-7. Saina’s misery was further compounded by her unforced errors as Tai moved into 18-9 within no time before winning three straight points to seal the first game 21-9.

Coming back from her error-prone gameplay looked really difficult for the Indian ace and the Taiwanese left no scope for it. She continued to dominate proceedings with beautiful deceptive returns and was leading 4-0 in no time. Saina could oreduce the deficit only when Tai missed her line while returning, as she moved closer to 9-4. 

However, an out of steam Saina was making weak returns now and Ying capitalized on them to lead 11-5 at the break. While her attempt to stop Ying with high serves worked to a certain extent, the recurring service errors didn’t allow her to get back into the game as Ying extended her lead to 16-9. It was just a matter of time before Ying was walking off the court as the victor and she eventually sealed the game 21-13.

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