Beijing, Aug 13 : India's ace shuttler Saina Nehwal bowed out of the Beijing Olympics this morning after losing a tough quarter-final encounter of the Women's singles badminton to Indonesia's Maria Kristin Yulianti.

World number 15, Saina lost to world number 16, Maria 28-26, 14-21 and 15-21.

Saina overcame a tough challenge put up by her Indonesian opponent in the very first game, as after leading 20-16 she needed only one point to settle the game, but Maria fought back hard to level the score at 20-20. though eventually Saina won the first game 28-26.

Maria bounced back in the second game as she maintained her lead right from the start, and levelled it 1-1 with a comfortable score of 21-14.

In the third and final game, Saina gained the lead right from the start. She was comfortably leading 8-1 at one stage, but Maria came back strongly to first level the score and then took a decisive lead of 19-12.

ANI