Saina Nehwal becomes first Indian woman to qualify for All England final

New Delhi: Saina Nehwal on Saturday scalped yet another Chinese shuttler to make her first All England Badminton Championships final and become the first Indian woman to do so. The Indian star made short work of unseeded Sun Yu, winning the semi-final match under an hour in Birmingham.

The world-number three from India had earlier defeated her Chinese nemesis and former World Champion Wang Yihan for the first time in more than two years in their last-eight encounter at the Barclaycard Arena.

Saina, who has been regarded as on the top players able to challenge the Chinese might, started her semi-final match in a sluggish way, but went onto win the first set 21-13. After a brief fight-back from the Chinese, the 24-year-old Indian took the second set in an identical score-line to reach her maiden All England final.

In her previous eight attempts at the prestigious tournament, she reached the semi-finals twice in 2010 and 2013. She lost in the last eight stage last year.

The 24-year-old Olympic medalist will play the winner of second semi-final match between reigning World Champion and sixth-seeded Carolina Marin of Spain and seventh-seeded Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei in the women's singles title clash.

Overall, Saina is the third Indian to qualify for the singles finals, after legendary Prakash Padukone and her former mentor Pullela Gopichand. Padukone and Gopichand won the championships in 1980 and 2001 respectively.

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