Saina Nehwal crashes out of Malaysia Open, loses to World No. 2 Akane Yamaguchi in straight games

Olympic Bronze medallist Saina Nehwal's run in the Malaysia Open ended with a straight-game loss to Japan's Akane Yamaguchi in the women's singles competition of the USD 700,000 world tour super 750 tournament at Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.

The former world no 1 Saina went down 15-21 13-21 to world no 2 Yamaguchi in 36 minutes at the Axiata Arena in Bukit Jalil, a suburb in Kuala Lumpur.

This is Saina's sixth straight loss to the Japanese in seven meetings. The only time Saina had defeated Yamaguchi was in the 2014 China Open.

Yamaguchi, who had struggled a bit against Saina during their last meeting at the Uber Cup Final, produced a dominating show as she led 9-2.

Saina fought back to narrow the gap to 10-11 but the Japanese again jumped to an 18-11 advantage and eventually secured the opening game comfortably.

In the second game, Yamaguchi again raced to an 8-2 advantage before shutting the door on the Indian. Earlier, Kidambi and PV Sindhu pulled off contrasting first round performances to enter the second round.

The 25-year-old from Guntur, Srikanth, is set to face Chinese Taipei's Wang Tzu Wei, who defeated Singapore Open champion B Sai Praneeth 21-12 21-7, in the other opening round match on Thursday.

Srikanth largely dominated the proceedings as he led 5-0 and then 13-8 at one stage. Jorgensen, who is on a comeback trail after recovering from an injury, levelled at 13-13 and grabbed a small 18-17 lead but in the end, two errors at the net cost him the opening game.

In the second game, Srikanth and Jorgensen fought hard to move to 5-5 before the Indian broke off and grabbed an 11-6 lead at the interval with a solid smash.

He kept dominating the rallies and eventually reached match point with another powerful smash, sealing the contest when the Dane went long. Meanwhile, Sindhu's, who had skipped the Uber Cup Finals to regain full fitness after claiming a silver at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, took some time to get into the groove before she edged out World No.14 Japan's Aya Ohori 26-24 21-15 in the opening round.

The third-seeded Indian will meet Malaysia's Ying Ying Lee on Thursday at the Axiata Arena at Bukit Jalil, a suburb of Kuala Lumpur.