September 26th, 2008 
Aman Win India’s Saina Nehwal has reached the semifinal of the China Masters Super Series Badminton tournament being played in changzhou, on Thursday. World ranked 12 Saina, seeded seventh in the tournament defeated world no. 6, seeded third China’s Lin Zhu in the quarterfinal of the tournament. She defeated her with the margin of 21-16,21-23 and 21-18. Zhu had got a walk over from Japan’s Eriko Hirose. Saina will meet Mi Zhou of Hong Kong in the semifinal. Zhou had defeated world no.2, top-ranked Lu Lan of China in the quarter final by 10-21, 21-13 and 21-14. Summary Match between Saina and Zhu was fought very closely. It was a fierce contest which lasted almost an hour. Saina played aggressively in the first game and win most of the points on smashes. She won the first game easily. But in the second game her Chinese counterpart gave her a stiff resistance. Second game was one of the most closely fought game as there was a marginal difference between the points of both of the players. It was won by Zhu. In the third and last game Saina rose to the occasion and came back strongly and won it easily. Quarterfinal Saina had defeated Japan’s Ai Goto in the second round of the tournament. It was a lop-sided match as Goto could not stand against her for much time as the match lasted only 21 minutes. Saina had defeated Goto by 21-12, 21-10. Saina had won the Chinese Taipai Open tournament on September 14 and had become the first Indian woman to win two Grand Prix Singles. But she had lost in the first round of the Japan Super Series. It must be learnt that she also had reached the quarterfinal of the game in the Beijing Olympic Games. Future Saina is only 18 years old and a bright future is waiting for her. Her present world ranking shows that she will rule the world in the coming years. Her performance at the Olympics, Chinese Taipai are only the starting point of her badminton career. Her reaching in the semifinal is nothing less than an achievement as very little preference is given to other games in the country where cricket rules.
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