Indian badminton ace Saina Nehwal served a warning to the formidable Chinese ahead of next month's Olympic Games when she clinched her third Indonesia Open Super Series title after beating world number three Xuerui Li in a see-saw summit clash today.
The fifth-seeded Indian, who had won the Thailand Open last week, defeated China's Li 13-21, 22-20, 21-19 in 64 minutes to win her third title of the year. "It was a really, really tough and I love the crowd here,” said the 22-year-old, who had won this title in 2009 and 2010 too and was a runners-up last year.
It was a battle of attrition for Saina against an opponent who she had lost to four times and won just once — way back in 2010.
Saina didn’t start too well, conceding four successive points to Li. The two players seemed engaged in a battle of smashes and were at par with each other when it came to baseline rallies. But it was the net play in which Li enjoyed the upper hand.
Li took an 11-6 lead with her seventh smash winner, as she engaged Saina in rallies before forcing her to commit errors from close range.
The Indian could not catch up and although the Chinese floundered a bit in the middle of the game, Saina failed to capitalise and lost the opener in 15 minutes.
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