PTI

New Delhi, Jun 12: Ace shuttler Saina Nehwal reached the quarter-finals after staving off a scare from Indonesian Adrianti Firdasari at the Singapore Open Super Series badminton tournament on Thursday.

Sixth seed Saina beat 19th ranked Firdasari 21-18, 17-21, 21-17 in a 50-minute battle.

The day, however, belonged to Anup Sridhar. The Olympian pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the tournament, beating world number two Dane Peter Gade to reach the quarter-finals.

The world number 39 Indian defeated third seed Gade 21-19, 16-21, 21-13 in an edge-of-the-seat thriller which lasted close to an hour.

In the quarter-finals, Anup takes on Thai Boonsak Ponsana, who beat sixth seed Simon Santoso 21-11, 21-7.

In the see-saw battle, Anup opened up a four-point lead at 14-10 in his first game and although his rival clawed back at 15-all first and then 16-17, the Bangalorean battled his way to eventually pocket the game.

The second game also could have gone either way as the duo went neck-and-neck from 3-3 to 9-9 before the Dane thumped his mark and raced away with the game.

The decisive third game turned out to be a complete thriller as the duo didn't concede an inch without fight and went 3-3, 5-5 and then 11-11 before Anup broke free and grabbed seven straight points to seal the match.