Defending champion Saina Nehwal sailed into the semifinals of the Indonesian Super Series Premier after scripting a straight-game victory over Carolina Marin of Spain here on Friday.
However, India's campaign ended in the men's singles event as both R M V Gurusaidutt and Ajay Jayaram lost their respective quarterfinal matches. World number two Saina took 39 minutes to outplay her 27th ranked opponent 21-16, 21-19 in a women's singles quarterfinal match at the Istora Gelora Bung Karno Stadium. The 23-year-old from Hyderabad will take on world no. three Juliane Schenk of Germany in the last four stage.
The first game was a close affair with none of the shuttlers sparing an inch to each other. Tied at 12-12, Saina broke free to surge ahead. She kept on increasing the gap and finally sealed it 21-13.
The Spanish girl started off on a great note in the second game, opening up a 7-2 lead before extending it further to 9-4.
Saina then got her act together and the two rivals got engaged in a fierce battle and the game was tied at 10-10. But Carolina once again won three consecutive points to take a slender 13-10 lead. The Spaniard then managed to maintain an upper hand and at one stage was comfortably placed at 19-15. But just when she seemed to run away with the second game, the higher ranked Indian bagged four points on the trot to be tied at 19-19.
After that there was no looking back for Saina as she clinched two important points to wrap 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.