Saina clinches 3rd straight Indonesia Open trophy
The
fifth-seeded defending champion, who had won the Thailand Open last
week, defeated Li 13-21 22-20 21-19 in an hour and four minutes to lift
her third title of the year.
"It
was a really, really tough and I love the crowd here. It's really nice
here. Whenever I enter the court, I feel like a champion here," said the
world number five 22-year-old.
It
was a battle of attrition for Saina against an opponent to whom she had
lost four times and won just once that too way back in 2010
previously.
The
start was ominous for Saina as she conceded four successive points. The
two players seemed engaged in a battle of smashes and were at par with
each other when it came to baseline rallies.
But
it was the netplay in which Li enjoyed the upperhand with her delicate
winners that Saina found hard to counter in the opening game.
Li took an 11-6 lead with her seventh smash winner of the game leaving Saina with a lot of catching up to do.
The
Chinese girl's strategy was to engage Saina in aggressive baseline
rallies before forcing her to commit errors from close range.
The
exhaustion of a couple of hard-fought matches in the previous rounds
also showed on Saina's on-court movement and her returns seemed
sluggish.
The
Indian could not breach the lead that Li had taken at the very start
and although the Chinese floundered a bit in the middle of the game,
Saina failed to capitalise and lost the opener in 15 minutes. In all, Li
sent down 13 smash winners against Saina's eight.
Li's superior netplay clinched seven points for her while Saina settled for just four in the opening game.
In
the second game, Saina staged a recovery and finally got into the lead
at 7-4 after a couple of miscued shots by the fourth seeded Li at the
far court.
Fortunes
fluctuated sharply in the exhausting second game. An erratic Saina, who
led 11-7 and 18-14 at one stage, lost her way for a while before saving
a championship point at 18-20 and going on to win the game and stay
afloat in the match.
Saina
played to her strength, smashing 16 winners as Li's baseline game
became erratic even though she kept breathing down the Indian's neck all
through.
Statistically, there was hardly anything to separate the two players, but a few errors in judgement by Li proved decisive.
Pumped
up after equalising, Saina started off dominantly in the decisive third
game and took a 5-2 lead. But after that it became a see-saw battle
with Saina trailing 10-11 at break.
But the Indian managed to nose ahead, grabbing a 19-16 lead.
However,
Saina let slip a championship point before clinching the game, match
and the trophy when Li smashed a backhand stroke into the net.
No comments:
Post a Comment