India's leading shuttler Saina Nehwal crashed out of the All-England badminton championships, losing to China's Li Xuerui in the quarter-finals in Birmingham on Friday.
The world No 4 lost 13-21, 21-23 to the seventh seeded Chinese in 40 minutes.
The Indian also failed to read the conditions and fell prey to the drift as she made quite a few judgment errors.
Li, on the other hand, played an aggressive game and her strokes were more accurate. The world No 5 Chinese opened up a 2-0 lead and went into the break 11-8.
After the breather, things didn't change much as Li reeled off seven straight points to create a huge gap which Saina failed to bridge.
After a pep-talk with India coach Pullela Gopichand during the break, Saina started the second game on a positive note and slowed down the game and engaged Li in long rallies to move to a 4-2 lead.
But the Indian lost a couple of points due to unforced errors and was also unlucky once to be at the receiving end of an umpiring decision as Li advanced from 6-6 to 9-9 before going into the break at 11-9 with the help of some good cross-court smashes and half smashes.
After the break, Saina won a long rally to level at 12-all. Both the shuttlers played an array of strokes but the Chinese was more accurate and deceptive as she moved ahead 16-13.
The sideway drift saw both the players succumbing to some unforced errors, but Li had her nose ahead at 19-17 and with Saina hitting out once again, the Chinese went up 20-17 for match-point.
Pushed to the wall, Saina not only saved three match-points but also grabbed the lead at 21-20. However, the Chinese wrested control and led 22-21 and won a long rally to eventually seal the match.
Saina had beaten Pi Hongyan of France 21-10, 21-17 on Friday to reach the quarter-finals.
She had reached the quarters in the last edition as well.
The 21-year-old from Hyderabad had reached the semi-finals of the All England in 2010, her dream year, when she won three Super Series titles -- Singapore, Indonesia and Hong Kong -- besides the Commonwealth Games gold medal.
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