Saina Nehwal suffered a straight-game defeat at the hands of sixth seed Yanjiao Jiang of China in the quarterfinals to crash out of the Korea Super Series in Seoul on Friday.
The fourth seed Indian lost 17-21 10-21 to the world number six Jiang in a 36-minute battle in the women's singles competition.
The 21-year-old started of well in the opening game and was leading 5-1 but couldn't sustain the pressure as the Chinese drew parity at 8-8 and then kept widening the gap, moving to 14-10.
Saina tried to come back, gaining a few points but Jiang managed to keep her nose ahead and pocketed the first game.
In the second game, Saina put up a fight but it lasted till 7-6 as the Chinese reeled off six points on the trot to surge ahead and held her fort to enter the semifinals.
The world number four Indian will next play in the Malaysia Open starting on January 10.