Jakarta: It was a mixed bag for the Indian shuttlers at Indonesia Super Series Premier as RMV Gurusaidutt and Ajay Jayaram lost their respective quarter-final matches while Saina Nehwal cruised into the semi-final here on Friday.
Saina registered a win in the quarterfinal in straight sets over Spaniard Carolina Marin. It took Saina just 39 minutes to beat her opponent by 21-16 and 21-19 in the quarterfinal match that was played at the Istora Gelora Bung Karno Stadium. The Indian badminton queen will now face German Juliane Schenk in the semi-final.
Saina had a tough fight in the opening game as she was tied with her oppnonet at 12-12. But the Hyderabadi shuttler managed to win it by 21-16.
Saina got bogged down in the second game as the Spaniard started off on a positive note to lead the game by 7-2 and soon extended it to 9-4. But the defending champion made an impressive comeback to equal the score at 10-10.
Carolina won three back-to-back points to extend her lead to 13-10. Soon the Spanish shuttler managed to take a healthy lead of 19-15. But Saina came out all guns blazing to score four consecutive points which again levelled the score to 19-19. Thereafter, Saina managed to notch two points to wind up the match.
Meanwhile, in the men's singles, Gurusaidutt went down fighting 21-19 11-21 10-21 to Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia in a contest that lasted an hour and six minutes.
In another match, world number 25 Jayaram wasn’t good enough to handle the brilliant net play of his opponent. He lost his quarter-final match that lasted for just 34 minutes by 16-21 15-21.