Saina Nehwal bows out of All England Championships 2018 following a first round defeat to defending champion and current world no. 1 Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei. This was Saina’s 8th successive defeat to the Taipei’s shuttler. Saina failed to withstand against the stronger opponent and lost in straight games 21-14,21-18.
Tai looked settled from the first point as she took a 9-4 lead at the start. Saina put up a spirited performance to level it on 9-9 but the Taipei player went into the break leading 11-10.
Both players went neck to neck as it soon became 14-14 but then Tai showed her domination in the context and took the game 21-14.
Saina showed the signs of fightback as she went into the break of second game, leading 11-8. She didn’t waste much time and made it 16-11 soon. But Tai was not in a mood to give the game easily as she made it 15-16 and took the 1 point lead later to make it 18-17 in her favour. Tai made sure to not do any further errors and won the game and match 21-14, 21-18.
Saina was looking tired in the later part of the match and Tai kept her engaged in long rallies which didn’t gave any breather to the Indian player and resulted in her defeat.
Tai Tzu-ying kicked off her #YAE18 title defence with victory over @NSaina in another high-quality women’s singles match in Birmingham! ?
? Reaction from both players? pic.twitter.com/yASQBVl1NY
— Yonex All England (@YonexAllEngland) March 14, 2018
In women’s doubles, India’s Meghana Jakkampudi and Poorvisha Ram lost 14-21, 11-21 to fifth seed Shiho Tanaka and Koharu Yonemoto of Japan in their opening round match.
