Saina in last eight, men end campaign in singles in Philippine Open

New Delhi, May 25 (UNI) Continuing her fine run, teenage prodigy Saina Nehwal stormed into the quarter-finals in the women's draw, while men shuttlers crashed out of the singles event in the Philippine Open Championship.

Saina brushed aside the challenge of Japanese Imai Sachiyo with an easy 21-5, 21-4 victory in just 29 minutes and the 16-year-old Indian, ranked 86th in the world, now runs into top seed Xu Huaiwen of Germany in the last eigth at Pasig City, according to information received here today.

Saina had earlier shocked the world number 31 Shutheaswari Mudukasan of Malaysia on the opening day.

However, Sayali Gokhale, who had pulled off a major upset against fifth seeded Anna Rice of Canada in the first round, could not repeat her form in the round of 32 and lost to Ai Goto of Japan 14-21, 13-21 in 29 minutes.

In the men's singles, world number 24 Chetan Anand went down fighting in three games to Hashim M Roslin of Malaysia 21-18, 22-24, 21-8 to in 53 minutes.

Arvind Bhatt followed suit and went down tamely to Ng Wei of Hong Kong 13-21, 11-21 in 30 minutes.

Earlier, national champion Anup Sridhar, Anand Pawar and P Kashyap lost their second round matches. Kashyap lost to Kuan Beng Hong of Malaysia 11-21, 16-21, while Sridhar went down fighting to Lee Yen Hui Kendrick of Singapore 22-20, 19-21, 19-21 and Pawar was beaten by Ponsana Boonsak of Thailand 15-21, 20-22.

The men's doubles pair of Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas, however, booked a place in the last eight winning their second round match against Thai pair of Anukrit Ayawal and Nattapon Naktong 21-17, 21-18. They will now meet Hendra A Gunawan and Joko Riyodi of Indonesia in the quarter-finals.

In women's doubles, Indian pairs of Nehwal-Misha Ruth and Sayali-Aditi Mutatakar had lost to their Malaysian and Japanese opponents respectively in the first round.

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