Saina goes down fighting in 2nd rd of All England Badminton

Birmingham, Mar 9 (UNI) Indian challenge at the All England badminton championship came to an early end after Saina Nehwal went down fighting to third seed Wang Chen of Hong Kong in the second round of the prestigious event here.

World number 32 Saina put up a brave fight but eventually lost 21-17, 13-21, 16-21 to her higher ranked opponent. The Hyderabadi girl had downed Malaysian qualifier Anita Raj Kaur to advance into the second round in women's singles.

The 17-year-old Indian shuttler started off well to win the first game but let the initial momentum slip from her to lose the next two games.

The experienced Chen, however, did not let the first game loss affect her concentration as she dug deep into her reserves to clinch the next two games and close the match in 51 minutes.

Earlier, top Indian shuttler Chetan Anand, had already crashed out in the first round of the men's singles while in the women's doubles, Jwala Gutta and Shruti Kurian had also failed to make any headway.

Anup Sridhar, P Kashyap, Anand Pawar and Nikhil Kanetkar had failed to qualify for the main round.

UNI