Saina Nehwal loses in semis, still in race for bronze

india's Saina Nehwal went down to world champion Wang Yihan in the women's singles semi-finals of the London Olympics badminton event in London on Friday. The match lasted 42 min, the longest rally was 34 strokes. Saina, the first Indian shuttler to reach the Olympics

semi-finals, lost 13-21, 13-21 at the Wembley Arena. The fourth seed will now play for the bronze medal Saturday against the other losing semi-finalist.

In their previous five encounters, Saina had never been able to blow her away. The two last met in January this year at the Malaysian Open where Saina lost 15-21, 16-21. In two of the three encounters in 2011, Saina managed to stretch Wang to three sets but could never alter the end result.
With already 21 individual titles to her name, Wang is known in the badminton circuit for not giving an inch to her opponents. Nehwal has yet to figure how to unravel that particular riddle.
Saina was realistic about her chances in the semis without sounding overtly confident.
"It's very, very difficult as the Chinese are strong opponents. We will both be under the pressure of expectations but I am not thinking about all that."
 I was thinking too hard" said Saina Nehwal after she was beaten in straight games by world number one Wang Yihan in the women's singles semifinals at the London Olympics on Friday.