Korea Open: Saina enters pre-quarters; Sameer, Vaishnavi crash out

Seoul, September 27: Asian Games bronze medallist Saina Nehwal is the only Indian left in the fray at Korea Open as she reached the pre-quarterfinals of the $600,000 Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Tour Super 500 Series Tournament with a straight-game win over Korea's Kim Hyo Min.

The former world no. 1, who is a two-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist beat Kim Hyo Min 21-12, 21-11 in a lop-sided opening round contest.

The fifth-seeded Indian will face local qualifier Kim Ga Eun next.

Round 1 victory against Kim Hyo Min of korea 21-12 and 21-11 .... #KoreaOpenSuper500 2018 👍👍 pic.twitter.com/EBtw9hxJRa

— Saina Nehwal (@NSaina) September 26, 2018

However, it was curtains for Swiss Open champion Sameer Verma and rising shuttler Vaishnavi Reddy Jakka.

While Sameer, who had secured the Hyderabad Open title early this week, ran out of steam against Denmark's Anders Antonsen, going down 21-15, 16-21, 7-21 in the men's singles match, young Vaishnavi was ousted 10-21, 9-21 by sixth seed Beiwen Zhang of USA.

Saina didn't face much competition from her first-round opponent as she opened up a 6-2 lead early on and then jumped to a 12-3 advantage before slowly and steadily moving ahead to pocket the first game.

In the second game, Saina again moved to a 5-2 lead first and kept distancing herself from Kim, who tried to stay close to the Indian.

But Saina was too tough for the Korean as she moved to 18-10 and then sealed the contest comfortably.

(With inputs from PTI)