World No.3 shuttler and Olympic bronze medallist Saina Nehwal on Friday beat the former World badminton Champion Shixian Wang in a thrilling encounter to reach the semi-finals of All England Open Badminton Championship held in London.
The 22-year-old second seed Indian shuttler gave a tough competition to sixth seed Wang scoring 23-21 19-21 21-16 in a game that went on for an hour and 14 minutes following which Nehwal emerged as winner.
While Nehwal had an upper hand throughout the game, the Chinese shuttler fought back and at a point took a 19-16 lead. However, Nehwal made a comeback by saving a gamepoint before taking the game.
This is the second time the Hyderabadi is entering the semi-finals of the prestigious All England Open Badminton Championship. Earlier, Nehwal reached the semi-finals in 2010.
In five career meetings, this is the fourth time Wang has lost to Nehwal.
With the exit of Wang from the championship the Chinese challenge ended in the women's singles.
Earlier, the top two seeds Li Xuerui and Wang Yihan had lost in the first round of the championship.
Nehwal will now take Thailand's eight seed Ratchanok Intanon on Saturday. Intanon entered the semi-finals by beating fourth seed German Juliane Schenk.
However, in men's singles, world number nine Indian shuttler Parupalli Kashyap was stopped from advancing in the championship by China's second seed Chen Long.
The Chinese shuttler notched up a 21-16 21-10 win in the men's singles competition by beating the Indian shuttler in straight games that lasted for 43 minutes.
