Kuala Lumpur: Ace India shuttler Saina Nehwal, who today suffered her second consecutive defeat by going down to Olympic champion Li Xuerui of China, will have to win her last group match to have any chance of advancing to the next round of BWF World Superseries Finals here.
A bad season only got worse for Saina as the world number six, who did not win a single title this year, failed to recover from the yesterday's opening match loss and suffered a 9-21 14-21 defeat at the hands of the world number one Chinese in her second Group B singles competition at the Kuala Lumpur Badminton Stadium here.
The 23-year-old Indian, who had lost to Japan's Minatsu Mitani yesterday, went down in just 27 minutes to defending champion Xuerui.
Saina still has a chance to make it to the semifinals as Korean world number seven Yeon Joo Bae defeated Mitani 21-10 21-18 in another Group B match today.
The Indian will now have to beat Bae tomorrow and then hope that Xuerui packs off Mitani to ensure a three-way tie for the second place in the group.
In that situation, the trio of Saina, Bae and Mitani will have one win each, and who will qualify for semifinals as group runner-up will depend on the difference of games won and games lost, according to tournament rules.
If Saina prevails over Bae in straight games tomorrow, she will have a good chance of qualifying for the semifinals where she will meet the Group A winner.
In today's match against Li, Saina was on the backfoot from the beginning as the Chinese opened up a massive 8-1 lead. Even though the Indian did well to claw back to 8-10, Xuerui soon stamped her authority to nose ahead rather easily with eight straight points from 13-9.
Saina raised hopes of a fightback early in the second game but Xuerui broke off at 5-5 and did not allow the Indian to come close before sealing the issue without much ado.
It was Saina's sixth defeat to Xuerui, the silver medallist at Guangzhou World Championship this year.
The Indian had defeated the Chinese twice in the past during her 2012 Indonesia Open triumph and in 2010 Singapore Super Series but those two victories could not spur up Saina enough today.
Plagued by injuries and inconsistent form this year, Saina made early exits in tournaments throughout the year but she had hoped for a change of fortune in the extremely competitive Super Series Finals, where the top eight shuttlers compete for the coveted title.
