India’s PV Sindhu, on Saturday, suffered a 12-21, 21-11, 7-21 loss against Wang Zhi Yi of China to exit from the women’s singles semi-finals at the 2023 Arctic Open Super 500 in Finland.

In a contest which saw phases of domination from both players, Sindhu suffered her first defeat against the Chinese shuttler in their third meeting.

Wang started off well in the match as she constantly pushed the Indian to all corners of the court. Sindhu looked completely out of sorts and struggled to return the shots as the Chinese fifth seed took the first game comfortably at 21-12.

The change of sides for the second game brought a much needed change in fortunes for Sindhu as she dominated the proceedings to win it 21-11 and force the match into a decider.

The double Olympic medallist, however, soon found herself trailing 5-11 in the decider and could muster only two more points in the match as she lost the final game 7-21 to draw curtains on the Indian campaign at Vantaa.

This was Sindhu’s fourth loss in as many semi-final appearances this season. She had previously lost in the semi-finals of the Madrid Masters, Malaysia Masters, and Canada Open earlier in the year.