Saina Nehwal advances to WBC (World Badminton Championship) quarters
Saina Nehwal and mixed doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and V Diju made history by being the first Indians to enter the quarter finals of the Word Badminton Championship held in Hyderabad. After losing the opening game itself, Saina made a brilliant comeback beating 10th seed Petya Nedelcheva of Bulgaria 18-21, 21-18, 21-10 in a thrilling 57 minute match. In the quarter finals Saina will be facing 2nd seed chinese Lin Wang, whom she has beaten in their last appearance in the Indonesian Super Seires finals recently.
Mixed doubles partners Jwala and Diju after 2 easy rounds where they got a bye in the first round and a walkover in the the second, outclassed 12th seeded Polish duo of Robert Mateusiak and Nadiezda Kostiuczyk 21-11 22-20 in just 31-minutes.
With the home crowd advantage being there, Saina started off well with a four point lead at 14-18 but failed to capitalize on the lead, and ended up losing the first game.
In the second game, the sixth seeded in the world Saina eased to a 6-0 lead making it 18-10 from where the Bulgarian then posed a spectacular fight back to level the score at 18-18. But Saina pocketed the game to make it level the match at 1 game each.
In the third game, the 20-year-old crowd favorite Hyderabadi played with a strategy by holding her Bulgarian opponent Petya in long rallies and perfectly mixing it up with soft drops. Saina extended her lead to 11-3 ensuring a victory even after Petya tried to make a comeback.
While Saina had to battle it out hard to win her match, the 8th seeded mixed doubles pair displayed an onslaught in the first game giving the Polish duo no hopes of a comeback.
In the second match the Polish duo fought back hard leveling the score at 18 each, where the Indians saved 2 match points to win the game 22-20.

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