Malaysia Open badminton: Sindhu puts up a fight but loses to Tai Tzu Ying, Srikanth also ousted

India’s challenge in the Malaysia Open Super 750 badminton tournament came to an end on Saturday after PV- Sindhu’s fighting display against world number one Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei ended in yet another defeat while Kidambi Srikanth was no match to the guile of Japan’s Kento Momota.

Having got the better of Olympics Champion Carolina Marin on Friday, Sindhu was definitely high on confidence going into the semifinal ut could not turn around things after forcing a dcider and lost 21-15, 19-21, 21-11 in 55 utes.

Earlier, Srikanth went down 21-13, 21-13 against Momota in the men’s singles semi-finals.

Sindhu began the semi-final looking to push her opponent on the back court and controlling the pace oh f the rallies. The ploy worked as she could stay close to Tai in the initial exchanges but at 6-6 in the opening game the world number one showed that she was in her zone when she won two long rallies with quality drops and a net clear.

To her credit, Sindhu was relentless picking up every shuttle and trying to force her opponent into making mistakes. But Tai simply managed to change gears to clinch four straight points from 13-12 and went on to pocket the opening game.

Sindhu came out all guns blazing in the second and clinched five straight points to make a statement of intent. However, everything seemed lost when Tai not only covered lost ground but also took the lead at the break.

However, the world number 3 Indian made it hard for her opponent to win easy points and managed to force a decider with three straight points while trailing 18-19.

But the effort definitely took toll on the Indian as Tai increased the tempo of the rallies and the Indian struggled to read her deceptive drops after staying close in the initial stages of the decider.

And when Tai begins to play her entire array of strokes it is too difficult to stop the Taipei girl and Sindhu was at the receiving end in the decider and ended up losing against her for the fifth straight time since her last win over the world number one two years ago at Rio Olympics.