Saina Nehwal came up with yet another dominant display to get the better of former world champion Ratchanok Intanon in straight games. She reaches her first major final since a career-threatening knee injury back in August 2016 at the Indonesia Masters in Jakarta on Saturday. Saina reached the final of an international competition after a gap of one years. She last triumped in Malaysia Masters last year which was played in January.
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“It was tough. After knee surgery, an ankle problem. When your time is bad, it is bad. So, I am happy that I came out of it. Kept myself relaxed and calm. I was finding ways on how to win. So finally winning happened,” she told reporters after the victory over Intanon.
One more tough round against Ratchanok intanon.. It was nice to b on the winning side in semi finals here in #IndonesiaMasters .. 21-19 , 21-19 ?? pic.twitter.com/V7diyxEPpd
— Saina Nehwal (@NSaina) January 27, 2018
Ratchanok opened up a 3-1 lead early on. Saina slowly tried to claw back and produced an excellent return from the back of the court which kissed the sideline to make it 5-5.
The Thai, however, had a two-point advantage going into the break but the world number 12 levelled scores at 13-13 as she started extending the rallies.
The game went right down to the wire, but some crucial errors by the Thai player, eventually handed over the first game to Olympic bronze medalist 21-19.
In the second game, Saina banked on her pace to take a 9-2 lead earlier, but Ratchanok eventually showed the right spirit to close the deficit. Saina went into the break leading 11-8.
Ratchanok didn’t find her rhythm right and made too many errors to hand over a 17-11 lead to the world number 12.
The things were looking easy for Saina, but Ratchanok had some other plans as she levelled the score with 17-17, courtesy of straight six points.
The Indian raised the tempo to earn two match points, Intanon managed to save one but Saina won an exciting rally there-after, when her opponent played a wide cross court shot, to seal the match 21-19, 21-19.
Saina will play World number 1 Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei in the finals on Sunday.
