Saina, who reached the finals at Indonesia Masters last week, looked a little sluggish in her movement and committed too many unforced errors to go down 10-21 13-21 to World No 11 American Beiwen Zhang.
Rio Olympic silver-medallist PV Sindhu continued her rich vein of form as she bounced back from a game down against Spain`s Beatriz Corrales to book her place in the semi-finals of the India Open here on Friday.
After comfortably winning the opening game, the top-seed went down in the second before she rebounded strongly to post a 21-12, 19-21, 21-11 win over eighth-seed Beatriz Corrales in a thrilling quarter-final clash of the women`s singles event. Sindhu will now lock horns with third-seed Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand for a place in the summit showdown of the tournament.
Saina looked completely out of sort in the opening game as a series of unforced errors saw her lag 0-6 behind before entering the interval at 5-11.
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Zhang continued to dominate the rallies after the breather and grabbed the opening game when the Indian netted.
Saina changed gears in the second game as her movements became better and she constructed the rallies well to move 9-9 together with the American. But Zhang again held a 11-9 held after unleashing a smash on Saina’s forehand.
After the break, Zhang again looked ominous as Saina struggled and eventually bowed out after hitting long.
Among others, top seeded Indonesian Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo shut out the fighting Indian men’s doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy 21-19 21-19, while sixth seeded women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy lost 17-21 21-23 to Chinese pair of Du Yue and Li Yinhui.
Seventh seeded Indian combo of Jakkampudi Meghana and Poorvisha S Ram lost 10-21 15-21 to second seeded Thai pair of Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Rawinda Prajongjai