New Delhi, Apr 25: Title favourite and world number two Saina Nehwal today suffered a shock defeat at the hands of unseeded Yui Hashimoto of Japan in controversial circumstances to crash out of the Yonex Sunrise India Open Super Series here.
An error-prone Saina, seeded top in the tournament, lost her women’s singles second round match 21-13, 12-21 20-22 in a contest that lasted one hour and two minutes.
The match was, however, marred by a contentious line call at the fag end of the crucial deciding game when Saina was leading 20-17 and about to wrap up the tie in her favour.
The line call went against Saina and it was apparent from her body language that she felt upset by the decision. The Japanese then pounced on the chance to reel off five straight points to win the match.
It was a sort of repeating history as Saina, then world number five, had bowed out of the same tournament last year in round two against Korea’s Youn Joo Bae.
The home crowd that turned up today to cheer Saina were on their feet as the opening game turned out to be a cake-walk for the London Olympic bronze medallist Indian and her opponent got points mainly due to unforced errors from her.(PTI)
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