French Open: Saina out, Rankireddy-Shetty in semis (Lead)

Paris, Oct 25 (IANS) Saina Nehwal's campaign in the French Open came to an end on Friday after she was beaten in the quarterfinal by South Korean teenager An Se Young in a hard-fought contest that lasted 49 minutes.However, India's men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty reached the semifinal with a 21-13, 22-20 win over world No. 8 Danish pair of Kim Astrup and Anders Rasmussen. This is the second time on the trot that the pair has reached the semifinal of the Super 750 tournament. Saina was chasing for much of the match but she had game point at 20-19 in the first game. Young, however, took three consecutive points to win the first game 22-20. The two went toe-to-toe in the second game with the Korean holding a slender 11-10 lead. After that, Young raced to an 18-13 lead as Saina responded by taking four consecutive points to close the gap to one point. It took two match points but in the end, the 17-year-old Korean prevailed over the former world No. 1. Saina will next feature in the $75,000 Saarlorlux Open in Germany starting November 29.
--IANS rkm/arm