India's star badminton player Saina Nehwal's hopes of qualifying for the Olympics were jolted when she knocked out of the first round of the women's singles of the All England Championship with a defeat against Akane Yamaguchi of Japan. Saina lost by 11-21 8-21 in just 28 minutes against world number three Yamaguchi. In men's singles, Lakshya Sen defeated Hong Kong's Chyuk Yu Li 17-21 21-8 21-17 in 59 minutes. Lakshya Sen will now take on second seed and world number seven Viktor Axelsen of Denmark for a place in the quarter-finals.
Saina is ranked 20th in the BWF rankings with 46267 points and the 2012 London Olympic bronze medalist will have to be in the top 16 by the cut-off date of April 28 to make it to 2020 Tokyo Games. She will have to achieve some good results to qualify for the Olympics. In the coming weeks, this Indian player has to participate in Swiss Open (17 to 22 March), India Open (24 to 29 March) and Malaysia Open (21 March to 5 April).
This is the ninth defeat in Saina's 11 matches against the Japanese player. She was eliminated in the first round for the third time in the current season. With the defeat of Saina, world champion PV Sindhu in women's singles remains India's only hope. Sindhu defeated American Beiwen Zheng in a straight game on Wednesday.
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