Indian badminton ace Saina Nehwal defeated world No 2 Akane Yamaguchi of Japan for the first time in four years to enter the quarterfinals of the Denmark Open, here on Thursday.
Nehwal, an Olympic Bronze-medallist who has dropped to World No 27, registered an easy 21-15, 21-17 win over second-seeded Yamaguchi in the pre-quarterfinal match that lasted just 36 minutes.
The 28-year-old Indian will now take on World No 3 and another Japanese Nozomi Okuhara in the quarterfinals on Friday.
This was Nehwal's second career win over Yamaguchi, who has won six times in the head-to-head encounters between the two.
Nehwal's first win against Yamaguchi came in 2014 during the China Open.
Since then, Yamaguchi has enjoyed upper hand against the Indian. The earlier two meetings this year — Uber Cup in May and Malaysia Open in June — also went in Yamaguchi's favour.
Nehwal trailed 0-4 initially but she made a fine comeback to level the scores at 10-10. But from there, Nehwal showed tremendous resolve and reeled off five straight points to take a 15-10 lead and then widened it to 19-12.
Yamaguchi recovered a bit but Nehwal grabbed five game points at 20-15 and then easily pocketed the first game.
In the second game, it was Nehwal's turn to take the lead initially as she zoomed to 7-2 but Yamaguchi caught her up at 11-11.
After that, it was a close tussle between the two as they were locked 17-17.
At that stage, Nehwal cinched four points on the trot to win the second game and clinch the match.
Sameer Verma pulled off another big win at the Denmark Open Super 750 tournament in Odense on Thursday by defeating Asian Games Gold medallist Jonatan Christie 23-21, 6-21, 22-20 in 70 minutes.
It was a day of upsets involving Indian shuttlers as Ashwini Ponnappa and Sikki Reddy defeated the world No 7 pair in the women's double pre-quarterfinals and Saina Nehwal downed world No 2 Akane Yamaguchi.
After defeating world No 2 Shi Yuqi in the first round, Verma upset world No 13 Christie in a topsy-turvy encounter. It was another superb result for the Verma, who has been India's most consistent male shuttler on tour in 2018.
The opening game was a tight affair with neither player unable to establish a clear advantage. The Indian, ranked 10 places below Christie, held a three-point lead late in the game before Christie fought back. Verma had to save a game point before drawing first blood.
The second game was a completely one-sided affair with Christie taking an early lead and not letting Verma have a chance at catching up with him. He ran away with the game 21-6.
The decider was once a tight affair, where both players had significant leads before letting the other fight back.
Christie started better, racing to a 8-3 lead before Verma fought back to take a 11-10 lead into the final change of ends. From 8-10 down, Sameer Verma won 7 straight points to take a 15-10 lead in the decider before the Indonesian fought back.
Verma, then, had three match points, which were all saved by Christie. The Indian converted the fourth time of asking to record another impressive win.
Verma will face the winner of K Srikanth and Lin Dan later on Thursday.
Ashwini-Sikki progress
Ashwini Ponnappa and Sikki Reddy completed an excellent comeback to defeat world No 7 pairing of So He Lee and Seung Chan Shin 18-21, 22-20, 21-18 in 61 minutes.
After losing a hard-fought first game, Ponnappa and Reddy were stretched all the way in the second game, with the scoreline reading 18-18, 19-19 and then 20-20 before the Indian pairing sneaked past 22-20.
The world No 22 pair for India led for the most part of the decider to wrap up the match and progress to the quarter-final.