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Saina loses, Indian challenge at Thailand GP over

June 10, 2011 17:01 IST

The Indian challenge at the Thailand Open Grand Prix ended after ace shuttler Saina Nehwal and two others suffered contrasting defeats in the quarter-finals in Bangkok on Friday.

Top seed Saina failed to live up to reputation and lost her women's singles match 13-21, 12-21 to seventh seed Xuerui Li of China in 30 minutes.

Commonwealth Games bronze medallist P Kashyap and promising Sourabh Verma also failed to cross the quarter-final hurdle in the men's singles at the CU Sports Complex.

Up against top seeded Chinese Chen Long, Kashyap found the going tough and lost 18-21, 5-21.

The 20-year-old Sourabh, however, put up a brave fight against third seeded Korean Sung Hwan Park before losing 21-16, 16-21, 11-21.

Earlier, World No 4 Saina was left to do the catch up act right from the start.

Xuerui was always ahead of the Indian and comfortably pocketed the first game.

In the second game, Saina opened a narrow 2-0 lead, but the Chinese drew parity at 4-4 and moved to 9-5. Though Saina caught up at 10-10, Xuerui broke away and sealed the issue.

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