Curtains drawn on Indian campaign in Thailand Open

New Delhi: Indian challenge ended in the Thailand Open Grand Prix after ace shuttler Saina Nehwal and

two others suffered contrasting defeats in the quarter-finals at Bangkok on Friday. Top seed Saina failed to live upto her reputation and lost 13-21, 12-21 to seventh seed Xuerui Li of China in a half an hour women`s singles encounter. Among Indian men, Commonwealth Games bronze medallist P Kashyap and promising shuttler Sourabh Verma also failed to cross the quarter-final hurdle at the CU Sport Complex. Up against top seed Chinese Chen Long, Kashyap found the going tough and suffered a 18-21, 5-21 loss. The 20-year-old Sourabh, however, put up a brave fight against third seed Korean Sung Hwan Park before going down 21-16, 16-21, 11-21 in a match that lasted more than an hour. Earlier, World number four Saina couldn`t provide a fight to Xuerui and was left to do the catch up act right from the start. Xuerui was always ahead of the Indian and comfortably pocketed the first game. In the second game, Saina had opened a narrow 2-0 lead but the Chinese drew parity at 4-4 and moved to 9-5 and though Saina caught up at 10-10, her opponent broke free and sealed the issue. PTI