Saina Nehwal pulled the rug from under world number five Wang Chen’s feet to shuttle into the quarter-finals of the badminton singles event here on Monday.

Saina delivered on her pre-Olympic promise to scalp a few higher ranked players and came up with a sublime performance to beat the Hong Kong player 21-19, 11-21, 21-11 in 52 minutes to reach the last-eight stage.

In the quarter-finals, Saina will meet Maria Kristin Yulianti, who is the world number 16 and was part of Indonesia’s Uber Cup runners-up team.

Saina’s quarter-final encounter is expected to be a mouth-watering contest as Yulianti too looked in good form after edging out sixth seed Tine Rasmussen 18-21, 21-19, 21-14 in an hour-long gruelling battle.

Saina seized early initiative and withstood a setback before delivering the knockout punch to upstage the fourth seed Wang.

With two quality shuttlers engaged in a no-holds-barred battle, the lead kept switching in the first game and Saina, trailing 16-19, looked in trouble before she reeled off five points on the trot to leave Wang stranded.

In the second game, the scores were level at 7-7 when Wang broke loose and won 10 of the next 12 points to stretch her lead to the point of being virtually unassailable.

In the decider, Saina broke loose and won the first six points before Wang made a comeback of sorts, though still trailing 4-7. Saina responded by winning the next five points in a row to widen the gap, and kept the lead to walk away with a win.

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