Glasgow Aug 26 (IANS) India s 2012 Olympic bronze medallist Saina Nehwal lost her singles semi-final against Japanese seventh seed Nozomi Okuhara as she settled for a bronze medal at the World Badminton Championships here on Saturday.
Saina the 12th seed lost 21-12 17-21 10-21 in an hour and 14 minutes to the 2016 Olympic bronze medallist who became the first Japanese to reach the World Championships women s singles final.
World Championships 2015 runner-up Saina who had a 6-1 head-to-head record against Okuhara coming into this game started strongly winning the first game 21-12 as the Japanese struggled to get into her rhythm.
The 22-year-old Japanese struggled with her net play and a few erratic line judgements to trail 6-11 which became 6-15 before losing 12-21.
Okuhara got off to a flying start in the second game taking a 4-0 lead but the 27-year-old Saina fought back and equalised at the nine-point mark.
Saina kept pace with her younger and sharper opponent but she got tired towards the end. At 17-all Saina wasted a great chance to take the lead as she fired a smash wide right.
Then Okuhara claimed three consecutive points as she showed more energy and agility as a tired Saina failed to stop her from dictating the rallies.
In the third game Okuhara completely dominated and her fast-paced game didn t allow Saina to get back into it.
Saina struggled with movements and failed to reach for Okuhara s delectable drop shots.
Okuhara the 2012 world junior champion raced away to an 11-4 lead and afterwards it was just a matter of time before the Japanese sealed the game at 21-10 and with this a place in the final.
Okuhara will meet the winner between India s P.V. Sindhu and Chinese rising star Chen Yufei in the final on Sunday.
Meanwhile men s singles defending champion Chen Long of China was ousted by Viktor Axelsen of Denmark. The Danish third seed crushed the 2016 Olympic champion 21-9 21-10 in 39 minutes.
Axelsen who won the bronze in the 2014 worlds and 2016 Rio Olympics was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency: "I am still a little out of words I never expected to win that comfortably I am very happy. I made little mistakes today and made very few errors.
"It was nice to get revenge from the Olympic semi-finals I am very proud of myself.
"My coach and I always look back at past championships to get better and improve on my game. Denmark is a small country but I am very proud that we can compete with the bigger countries. It s a dream come true ever since I was a little boy I dreamed of a World Championships final."
Chen 28 said he was under too much pressure. "I got the first points then lost a lot of the next and that really affected my game. In the second I managed to go ahead and that put a lot of pressure on me but Victor played very well.
"Congratulations to Victor to getting to the final he played the perfect game " he added.
--IANS
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