An erratic Saina Nehwal failed to defend her title at the Indonesian Super Series Premier after suffering a three-game defeat to Germany's Juliane Schenk in the semi-finals of the women's singles competition in Indonesia on Saturday.
World No 2 Saina, a three time champion, lost 21-12, 13-21, 14-21 to Schenk, in a contest that lasted for 52 minutes at the Istora Gelora Bung Karno stadium. Saina won the title in 2009, 2010 and 2012.
Saina holds a 8-3 record against the German but was erroneous in the execution of her strokes, which helped her opponent to seal a place in the final.
In the first game, Juliane took a 12-10 lead after a fierce battle early on, but Saina wrested back the advantage by involving the German in long rallies and catching up her at the net.
Juliane failed to gauge Saina's strokes and faltered with her execution as she kept hitting long and found the net too often and allowed the Indian to race away with the first game with straight 11 points. Saina sealed the game with an over-the-head half smash.
After changing sides, Juliane moved to a 4-0 lead in a flash as nothing went Saina's way. The Indian tried to engage Juliane in rallies and kept pushing the shuttle back and froth but Juliane was up to the task as she moved to 6-0 with Saina hitting wide.
Egged on by a vociferous crowd, the Indian gathered four points but Juliane nosed ahead to 11-4 at the interval.
Juliane kept the shuttle flat during serve, retrieved everything and smashed hard to move to 14-6. A couple of missed strokes at the net gave Saina two points but the Indian committed too many unforced errors to allow Juliane gain nine game points at 20-11.
