Saina starts season with easy win

Published>Thu, Jan 21 10 05:25 PM

Saina Nehwal began her competitive season with an opening-round 21-10 21-12 dismissal of Malaysian qualifier Li Lian Yang at the Malaysia Open Super Series on Wednesday. The world No 8, who had skipped the nationals in Guwahati and the Korean Super Series to nurse a few niggles from the season past, has returned to the grind of the Super Series tour this week, though her focus in 2010 remains the three big ones - the world championships, the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games soon, all bunched up in the latter half of the year.

The testing times, though, could begin as early as Thursday's second-round clash when Nehwal, seeded seventh at the Putra Stadium in Bukit Jalil, looks for a quarter-finals spot. Facing Ai Goto will be the Hyderabad player's first real stretch as the Japanese floater, ranked 26th in the world, is likely to offer more resistance than Nehwal's first round easy hunt. Against the local qualifier Yang on Wednesday, the 19-year-old Indian took exactly five points to settle down after which she was ruthless in putting it across the young Malaysian - using 11 smash winners in the second game alone to keep widening the gap.

Nehwal's second half of 2009 was replete with struggles (and losses) against dangerous Top-20 and Top-30 players, and she would be relieved to get going in her first tournament of the fresh year at an event where the top Chinese - Wang Yihan, Wang Lin, Wang Shixian and Wang Xin, besides Jiang Yanjiao, also return to action.

Chetan through too

Also going through to Round 2 was India's top men's challenger Chetan Anand, who took half an hour to see off Malaysian Kwong Beng Chan 21-19 21-16. The 29-year-old Indian, ranked 16 in the world, faces another local qualifier, Wei Feng Chong, in the second round. India's leading mixed doubles pair Jwala Gutta and V Diju do not feature at Malaysia and the medal-hunt for the country at a multi-discipline event begins this month-end when they compete at the SAFF Games from January 29.

Source: Web Search