Badminton: Saina shines against Sun to win Australian Open

Sydney: Indian star Saina Nehwal defeated Chinese Sun Yu to win the women’s singles title of the $750,000 (Dh2.758 million) Australian Badminton Open Superseries here on Sunday.

World No. 8 Saina lost the first game 11-21 against the world No. 12 Chinese before winning the next two games 21-14, 21-19 to clinch the championship for the second time in three years.

Now, the 2015 World Championship runner-up has a 6-1 lead in the head-to-head record against Sun. It was the 26-year-old Hyderabadi’s seventh Superseries title.

Denmark’s Hans-Kristian Vittinghus defeated South Korean Jeon Hyeok-jin to win his first Superseries title. The 30-year-old Dane, ranked 12, finished strongly to beat Jeon 21-16, 19-21, 21-11 in 71 minutes. He became the first Dane to win a Superseries tournament in two years and took away a A$56,000 cheque as the winner.

Vittinghus sunk to his knees on claiming the title after coming up short winning the Superseries Masters final to China’s Chen Long in Dubai in 2014.

Chen, the world No. 2, was knocked out in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open by Indonesia’s Anthony Sinisuka Ginting on Friday.

Vittinghus led Denmark to victory in the fifth and final match of last month’s Thomas Cup in China, the first time a European nation has won the men’s teams cup competition.

It was 26th-ranked Jeon’s first Superseries final and came a day before his 21st birthday.

Nehwal, 26, claimed her second Australian Open title, her 22nd career title and her first Superseries tournament since winning in India in March last year. Nehwal’s retrieval game was outstanding as she wore down the tall 22-year-old Chinese to win on her second championship point in the third game.