French Open Super Series: Saina Nehwal loses in straight games to Akane Yamaguchi

Saina Nehwal crashe out of the French Open Superseries on Thursday as she went down in straight games to Japanese fifth seed Akane Yamaguchi. 

The Indian ace lost 9-21, 21-23 in 39 minutes in Paris to exit the $325,000 tournament. This was World No.11 Saina’s third loss to the Japanese in four meetings.

Yamaguchi has earlier ended Nehwal’s campaign at the Denmark Open last Friday. She had also defeated Nehwal in the opening round at the Malaysia Open in May.

Nehwal did not get off to the best of starts, trailing 6-11 in the first game before losing 8 straight points at the end as the Japanese wrapped the first game easily. 

In the second game Nehwal gave a much improved performance but still trailed 7-11 at the mid-game break. She was soon trailing 16-19. The Indian then fought back to win four points to give herself a game point. But Yamaguchi turned it around to wrap the game up 23-21.