Saina Nehwal Exits From First Round Orleans Masters

Orleans: London Olympic bronze medallist Saina Nehwal crashed out of the Orleans Masters badminton tournament with a straight-game first round loss to Turkey’s Neslihan Yigit, here on Wednesday.

Mithun Manjunath, Priyanshu Rajawat, Aakarshi Kashyap and Tanya Hemanth progressed to the second round.

Returning to the court after missing a few tournaments, the celebrated Indian shuttler tamely went down 16-21 14-21 to Turkish qualifier Yigit in 39 minutes.

Saina, who missed the All England Championships and has dropped to 32 in the BWF Rankings, had her right knee heavily strapped.

She looked sluggish and was slow off the blocks as she trailed Yigit 4-11. Saina, however, fought back to narrow down the deficit to 13-15 but the gap was eventually too much as the Turkish shuttler took the first game.

A rusty Saina was down against in the second game, trailing 6-11 at the mid-game interval and eventually losing the tie in straight games.

Sameer Verma, on the other hand, squandered a game lead to lose 19-21, 21-19, 21-17 against Ireland’s Nhat Nguyen.

In other first-round men’s singles matches, India’s Manjunath defeated higher-ranked Victor Svendsen of Denmark 24-22, 25-23 while Rajawat beat compatriot Kiran George 21-18, 21-13.

Manjunath will play Taipei’s Yu Jen, who was lucky to progress after fifth seed Rasmus Gemke retired in the second game after pocketing the first.

Rajawat, on the other hand, will be up against top seed Kenta Nishimoto of Japan.

Nishimoto prevailed over Taipei’s Chia Hao Lee 21-18, 21-11.