Saina Nehwal won the Chinese Taipei Grand Prix Gold Open badminton tournament after overcoming a stiff challenge from Li Ya Lydia of Malaysia in Taiwan on Sunday. World No.14 Saina, seeded second, beat the Malaysian 21-8, 21-19 to win her career’s second Grand Prix tournament. Earlier, she had won the Philippines Open in 2005.
The 18-year-old Hyderabadi beat Mingtian Fu (Singapore), Kwan Yi Monng (Hong Kong), Porntip Buranaprasertsuk of Thailand and Pia Zebadiah Bernadet (Indoensia) to reach the finals.
Saina has been in brilliant form this season and missed out on an Olympics medal by a whisker as she lost in the quarter-final to Maria Kristin Yulianti of Indonesia.
She became the first women Indian shuttler to enter the semi-final of Super Series event in Singapore Open in June and then made it the quarter-final of Thailand Open. The good show helped her to crack the top-20 in the singles charts.
But it was her performance in Olympics where she knocked out world No.5 Chen Wang of Hong Kong that caught the nation’s imagination.
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