new delhi,mar 26
Indian ace Saina Nehwal eked out a thrilling three-game win over USA’s Iris Wang to advance to the women’s singles semifinals of the Orleans Masters badminton tournament here on Friday.
It is the first semifinals in two years for world no. 20 Saina, who is desperate to accumulate ranking points to make it to her four Olympics at the Tokyo Games. Her last semifinal appearance was in January 2019 in the Indonesia Masters 500 tournament which she had won.
The fourth seeded Indian, who had withdrawn from the All England Championships last week due to an injury, had to dug deep to script a 21-19 17-21 21-19 win over world no. 36 Wang in a gruelling quarterfinals match that lasted exactly an hour.
The London Olympic bronze medallist will face either Denmark’s Line Christophersen or compatriot Ira Sharma for a place in the finals at the Super 100 event, which is a part of BWF’s revised Olympic qualification events.
