Saina sails into quarterfinals in London Olympics

Saina sails into the quarterfinals after notching up a comfortable victory over Dutch Jie Yao.

India ace Saina Nehwal romped into the quarterfinals of the women’s singles after notching up a comfortable straight-game victory over Dutch Jie Yao in the London Olympics,here today.

The world No 5 Indian tired out the Dutch girl by engaging her in rallies and executed her strokes with perfection to emerge victories by 21-14 21-16 margin in a 40-minute match at the Wembley Arena here.

After two easy matches in the group stages,it was a good warm up for the 22-year-old Indian,who will take on either two-time All England champion Tine Baun of Denmark or Sayaka Sato of Japan in the quarterfinals.

Up against the world No 20 Jie,Saina surged to a 11-5 lead and moved to the game point in a jiffy when the Dutch girl hit wide.

The Chinese-born girl saved a few game points,mainly because of the error of judgement by Saina and a couple of loose shots but soon she pocketed the game with a beautiful net play.

In the second game,Saina brought out her variations and involved Jie in rallies to lead 11-7 at the break. Jie fought back to narrow the gap to 14-12 but that didn’t affect the Indian as she moved ahead to 19-15 with a drop and then executed a cross court smash to earn the match point.

Jie won a net play but with her hitting out,Saina burst into celebration.