BWF Superseries Final 2011

China: Ace shuttler Saina Nehwal, who became first Indian singles player to reach the final of BWF Superseries Finals, lost the final match to world number one Yihan Wang.

Saina lost the summit clash 21-18, 13-21, 13-21.

Saina was leading the first game comfortably before China's Wang came back strongly to reduce world number four's lead. But in the end it was Saina who hold the nerve to win the first game 21-18.

Indian top ranked was unable to dominate the second game as Wang made a stunning comeback to win the game 21-13. Chinese continued her good work in the third and the deciding game to win 21-13 and clinch the title.

On Saturday, Saina created history by becoming the first Indian singles player to reach the summit clash of the BWF Super Series Finals after defeating Tine Baun of Denmark in the semifinals.

Jwala Gutta and V Diju are the only other Indians to have achieved the feat when the mixed doubles pair reached the Super Series Finals in the 2009 edition of the tournament before losing to Christinna Pedersen and Joaquim Nielsen.

Gopi’s pep-talk

It was interesting to hear Saina’s coach Pullela Gopi Chand to remind his trainee before the start of the third game that the Chinese opponent too can play big shots and advice her to play the waiting game and conserve energy.

But, it did not have the desired effect as Saina’s game faltered in the decider as Yihan came up with some incredible half-smashes with great control which caught the Indian off-guard quite a few times to take a 9-3 lead at one stage. Then, Saina came up with big smashes and wonderful net game and saw the opponent too miss simple forehand smashes to reduce the lead to 7-9.

Significantly, Yihan rarely preferred to go for the big smashes, relying more on cross-court returns either in the fore-court or to the corners. A strategy which saw Saina clearly struggling and as the game progressed her body language too was not really positive as Yihan took an 18-10 lead . And, when the world champion executed the forehand smash down the line to clinch the issue, it was an apt end to a great comeback by the Chinese player who had now won seven titles this year.

For someone who had already created history by becoming the first ever Indian to enter the singles final of the World Super Series (Gutta Jwala and V. Diju were the only other Indians who made it to the final in mixed doubles in the 2009 edition), Saina could still feel happy for the way she fought valiantly and brought back memories of her vintage displays of last year.

The 21-year-old Hyderabadi is on record before she left the City to remind that she is in the mood to prove that she is worth her reputation and all the media limelight for all good reasons with an improved showing in this edition.

But today’s wonderful performance in the final was also another reminder that Saina is the only player outside China who has the game and the ability to breach what not long ago was an impregnable ‘Chinese Wall’ in the world badminton.

Results: All finals:

Women’s doubles: Xiaoli Wang & Yang Yu (Chn) bt Jung Eun Ha & Min Jung Kim (Kor) 21-8, 2-12.

Mixed doubles: Nan Zhang & Yunlei Zhao (Chn) bt Chen Xu and Jin Ma (Chn) 21-13, 21-15.

Men doubles: Mathias Bose & Carsten Mongensen (Den) bt Bio Chai and Zhendong Guo (Chn) 25-23, 21-7.

Women’s singles: Yihan Wang (Chn) bt Saina Nehwal (Ind) 18-21, 21-13, 21-13.