Birmingham: Saina Nehwal's dream of becoming the first Indian woman to win the All England Open title was dashed to ground by young Ratchanok Intanon, who at the age of 18 became the first women’s singles player from Thailand ever to reach an All England final.
Intanon did that by winning the semi-final 21-15, 21-19 against Nehwal, the second seeded who had become the tournament favourite since the first day defeat of Olympic champion Li Xuerui.
This is the third time Saina has lost to Intanon. She was beaten at the Sudirman Cup in 2011 and also at the Super Series Final last year.
The 18-year-old Intanon mixed the strokes and used her drops and tosses to fluommox Saina. The Thai girl had better control over her strokes and controlled the rallies with her varying pace to make it difficult to come back in the match after pocketing the first game at 21-15.
Nehwal fought very hard and did well to pull back a deficit which had been five points to just one at 20-19 in the second game. She also saved one match point with a good black setting up a kill at the net. Then she undid all the good work with a little net shot which failed to creep over as Intanon took the concluding rally into the forecourt.
Nehwal, bitterly disappointed, disappeared quickly afterwards, but Intanon took all the extra attention in her stride as well as she had done in the match.
“I played really well in the first game but she fought hard in the second,” she said. “I didn’t know whether I would win. I was getting tired at the end.”
ISN/inputs from official website of All England Open