Saina Nehwal to play in French Open quarter-finals

Paris: Saina Nehwal, who lost her world number one ranking yesterday, will be seen in action in the quarter-finals of the French Open Superseries Badminton tournament in Paris today. She will take on eighth seed Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand.

Saina is the only Indian left in the tournament as P Kashyap, HS Prannoy, Ajay Jayaram, and the pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa bowed out in the



pre-quarterfinals.

Yesterday, Saina lost her world number one spot to All England and world champion Carolina Marin of Spain in the latest Badminton World Federation rankings. 

This follows Saina's early exits at the recent Japan Open and Denmark Open tournaments. Saina dropped to second, while PV Sindhu, who reached her maiden Super Series final in Denmark, remained at the 13th spot.