Saina sails into quarterfinals in London Olympics

London, Aug 1 (PTI) India ace Saina Nehwal romped into the quarterfinals of the women's singles after notching up a comfortable straight-game victory over Dutch Jie Yao in the London Olympics, here today. The world No 5 Indian tired out the Dutch girl by engaging her in rallies and executed her strokes with perfection to emerge victories by 21-14 21-16 margin in a 40-minute match at the Wembley Arena here. After two easy matches in the group stages, it was a good warm up for the 22-year-old Indian, who will take on either two-time All England champion Tine Baun of Denmark or Sayaka Sato of Japan in the quarterfinals. Up against the world No 20 Jie, Saina surged to a 11-5 lead and moved to the game point in a jiffy when the Dutch girl hit wide. The Chinese-born girl saved a few game points, mainly because of the error of judgement by Saina and a couple of loose shots but soon she pocketed the game with a beautiful net play. In the second game, Saina brought out her variations and involved Jie in rallies to lead 11-7 at the break. Jie fought back to narrow the gap to 14-12 but that didn't affect the Indian as she moved ahead to 19-15 with a drop and then executed a cross court smash to earn the match point. Jie won a net play but with her hitting out, Saina burst into celebration.