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Basel: Ace shuttler Saina Nehwal stormed into the quarter finals of the Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament with a straight game win over of Petya Nedelcheva of Bulgaria, here.
Saina, who is the defending champion and top seed here, took exactly half an hour to get the better of Nedelcheva 21-15, 21-10 in the pre-quarter finals of the women’s singles event late on Thursday night.
By virtue of this win, Saina, who reclaimed World No. 2 position on Thursday, took a 6-2 head-to-head lead over 23rd ranked Nedelcheva.
Saina will next face sixth seeded Tzu Ying Tai of Chinese Taipei in the quarter finals later on Friday.
Except for Saina, curtains fell on India’s challenge in the tournament as all the other shuttlers made early exits.
Rising star P. V. Sindhu made an exit from the tournament after losing to qualifier Yui Hashimito of Japan 21-23, 11-21 in a second round contest of the women’s singles event.
Parupalli Kashyap also crashed out in the pre-quarter finals.
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