Up against the top seeded Chinese, Saina committed too manyunforced errors to see her dreams of winning a gold medal crashing afterslumping to a 13-21 13-21 defeat in the semifinal tie which lasted for 42minutes at the Wembley Arena here.
The fourth seeded Indian will next take on the loser of theother semifinal match between Xin Wang and Li Xuerui in the bronze medal playoff Saturday.
There was very little margin for error for Saina as Yihanwas sharper, more accurate and also used her powerful smashes to outwit theIndian here.
The 22-year-old committed too many unforced errors to lag6-11 at the interval in the first game. Although Saina tried to come back withthe help of some brilliant net play, the Chinese employed some immaculateplacements and powerful smashes to lead 1-0.
In the second game, Saina tried to match her superior rivaland did trouble her to enjoy a one-point lead at the break. But the Chineseworld champion soon started forcing Saina to commit errors and moved ahead.
Yihan anticipated the shots and was better prepared and,with Saina hitting wide and long, the Chinese had no problem in cementing herplace in the finals.
This was Yihan's sixth victory over Saina in as manyencounters.
As dusk settled here, India's lone hope in tennis - themixed doubles pair of Paes and Sania took one step closer to clinching a medalin the 16-strong draw by winning their opening encounter.
The duo defeated the Serbian pair of Nenad Zimonjic and AnaIvanovic 6-2 6-4 to reach the quarter finals.
Paes and Sania will now face top seed Victoria Azarenka andMax Mirnyi of Belarius in the next round.
Paes and new partner Vishnu Vardhan had gone down to JoWilfred Tsonga and Michael Llodra, the wild card recipients from France, 6-7(3) 6-4 4-6 in the men's doubles first round contest late yesterday.
Narang crashes out, Karmakar keeps hopes alive
Gagan Narang failed to replicate the form that fetched himthe 10m air rifle bronze as he crashed out of the 50m rifle prone event at theLondon Olympics but compatriot Joydeep Karmakar kept alive India's hopes byadvancing to the finals here today.
Narang, who just four days ago became the country's firstmedal winner at the London Games, could fire just 593 out of 600 to finish ashocking 18th in a field of 50 competitors and lost a great chance of anotherpodium finish.
However, Karmakar kept India in the hunt by finishing with595 points and then 51.6 in the shoot off at the Royal Artillery Barracks.
Karmakar shot a total of 595 to finish tied fourth witheight others.
Thereafter, at the shoot-off, he scored 51.6 to finishseventh position and earn a berth in the eight-man final to be held latertoday.
The leader of the qualifying stage, Sergei Martynov ofBelarus scored 600 out of 600 to equal both World as well as Olympics record.
Narang started with a 98 in the first series but came backstrongly by getting two perfect 10s for consecutive 100s in the second andthird round and looked all set to make the cut.
However, he misfired and logged a poor 98 and 97 in the nexttwo rounds, which dashed his chances of making the medal round.
Inspite of hitting 100 in the sixth and his last round,Narang could finish only behind 17 other shooters.
