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Saina ticks China box

Beats World No.3 Xuerui Li to win Indonesian Open in 3 games

Saina Nehwal served a warning to the dominant Chinese ahead of next month’s London Olympics when she won her third Indonesia Open Super Series title after beating World No.3 Xuerui Li in a see-saw final in Jakarta on Sunday. The fifth-seeded Indian,who had won the Thailand Open last week,defeated China’s Li 13-21,22-20,21-19 in an hour and four minutes to lift her third title of the year. Her first title of 2012 was the Swiss Open.

It was always going to be a tough battle for Saina against an opponent to whom she had lost four times and won just once — way back in 2010. Saina conceded four successive points at the start of the first game. She battled back to make it 2-4 but her Chinese opponent maintained a steady lead throughout the first game. The two players engaged in a battle of smashes but Li was superior at the net.

In spite of struggling to execute effective returns in the first game,Saina managed to shift to a higher gear in the second game. However,this was a game in which fortunes fluctuated sharply. An erratic Saina,who led 11-7 and 18-14,lost steam momentarily before saving two championship points at 18-20. In the third,Saina started off strongly by taking a 5-2 lead. At one point she was trailing 10-11 before going par at 13-all and then 14-all and then managing to lead 19-16. However,Saina let slip a championship point before clinching the decisive game.

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  • saina nehwal Xuerui Li
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