Saina loses semi, aims for bronze
London, Aug. 3: Outclassed by a clearly superior rival, Saina Nehwal on Friday tamely lost to the top-seeded Yihan Wang of China in the women’s singles semifinal of the Olympic Games here, acknowledging later that the Chinese was “too fast” for her.
World No.5 Saina, the first Indian shuttler to reach the Olympic semifinals, was beaten 13-21, 13-21 by the world’s top woman badminton player in a match that lasted 42 minutes at a packed Wembley Arena, where Indian supporters outshouted the Chinese, but to no avail.
Saina can still hope to win an Olympic bronze in a play-off with yet another Chinese player, Xin Wang, who lost to compatriot Li Xuerui 22-20, 21-18 in a closely-fought second semifinal.
Saina will meet the World No.3 Chinese in the play-off on Saturday.
Clearly off colour, the Hyderabadi girl was never in the match except for brief moments in the second set. She was unable to draw her rival into rallies and could not hold her service for long.
Acknowledging the superiority of Wang, a disappointed Saina said later that Wang was too fast. “Wang was simply too fast for me,” Saina said, adding: “I was not moving well on the court and she exploited that. I made some errors in crucial stages which did not help me,” she said. INDIA OUT OF RECKONING
FOR HOCKEY SEMIS India slumped to a humiliating 2-5 defeat against formidable Germany in Group B and went out of reckoning for a berth in the semifinals of the men’s hockey competition in London on Friday.
The Indians were no match for their speedy rivals and their defence was split open at will by the Germans. Young striker Florian Fuchs (7th minute, 16th, and 36th) scored a brilliant hat-trick for the Germans.
For India, V.R. Raghunath (13th) and Tushar Khandker (62nd) reduced the margin of defeat. OM, MAYOOKHA FAIL TO MAKE CUT FOR FINALS Shot putter Om Prakash Karhana and triple jumper Mayookha Johny failed to advance to the final round after finishing 19th and 22nd, respectively in the qualifiers. Om Prakash’s throw of 19.86m placed him 10th in Group B and 19th overall.
— PTI