It was not quite the one-hour-50-minute-long epic like in the previous edition, but PV Sindhu and Nozomi Okuhara pulled out yet another spectacular match in the badminton world championships, with the Indian coming through in straight games.
Sindhu avenged her loss in the final of Glasgow 2017 with a 21-17, 21-19 win over the Japanese in the quarter-finals in Nanjing, China, on Friday to enter the semi-finals and guarantee herself a medal for the second straight year.
It was Okuhara who took the initiative early on as he went for a trademark move of drawing her opponent forward before finishing off the point with a cross-court slice. The Japanese was leading 7-3 in the first game before Sindhu started to get into the match.
The world No 5 won seven of the next eight points to open up a lead for herself with her aggressive play coupled with a strong defence. Sindhu managed to maintain the lead till the end of the first game, winning it 21-17.
In the second game again, Okuhara started strongly, winning the first five points. She won the net dribbles with Sindhu and stepped up her pace a bit, while Sindhu also gave away some easy points with unforced errors.
However, from 3-9 down, Sindhu began her fightback, determined to not let the match go into a deciding game. The 23-year-old won three long, gruelling rallies – one of them had 45 shots – in this period to reduce Okuhara’s lead to 11-10 at the interval.
From there, the two players continued playing long rallies and exchanging points till the score reached 19-19. Both players were out of steam by this point, but Sindhu managed to find enough juice to win the next two points to seal the match.
This was the fifth meeting between the two players after the Glasgow final last year, with both trading wins. “Both of us know each other’s game so it was important to be on the court,” said Sindhu after the match. “She does not give easy points, so I needed to be patient on the court. We had really long rallies and every point was important for me.”
In the semi-finals on Saturday, Sindhu will take on another Japanese player in world No 2 Akane Yamaguchi, who was stretched to three games by China’s Chen Yufei. Yamaguchi had beaten Sindhu in the semis of the All England Open earlier this year, but Saturday’s match is likely to depend on who has more gas left in the tank.
“It’s Yamaguchi tomorrow so I have to be prepared for another long match,” said Sindhu. “I just have to go and rest now and be ready for tomorrow.”
Just before this match, India’s Sai Praneeth was outclassed by men’s singles title favourite Kento Momota of Japan, who won in straight games 21-12, 21-12. Sai Praneeth did not play as badly as the score suggest – his retrieving was really good and he even played an audacious behind-the-back backhand shot to win a point – but the Japanese was just a couple of levels higher.
Sai Praneeth did well in rallies against Momota but lacked that finishing ability – that big smash that can win you the point. During one such rally, the Indian also missed a simple dribble, and looked nervous during the match.
Earlier in the day, Saina Nehwal was also outclassed by Olympic champion Carolina Marin, losing in straight games 6-21, 11-21.
