India’s ace shuttler Saina Nehwal, ranked fifth in the world, lost to Ukraine’s Marija Ulitina 18-21 19-21 in her second group match at the women's singles event on Sunday. The loss meant that Nehwal is eliminated and failed to progress to the next round.
Nehwal began the first game in an aggressive manner and quickly took a 7-2 lead. However, Ulitina, ranked almost fifty places below Nehwal, fought back to tie the game at 11-11. It was a tightly fought game with both players refusing to bow down. Tied at 17-17, Nehwal lost the point to give Ulitina the lead. The Ukrainian sped a 20-17 lead and gained three game points to win the game. Eventually, Ulitina took the first game 21-18.
In the second game, Nehwal tried to dig deep but seemed to be moving with difficulty and was not at her usual best. The second game went down to the wire as well with Nehwal going ahead 17-15. However, the world No. 61 came back strongly to win the game and match 21-19.
Nehwal had begun her Olympics campaign with a hard-fought 21-17 21-17 win over Brazil’s Lohaynny Vicente on Thursday.