PV Sindhu, the girl next door, doesn’t have a penchant for theatrics. But put her on a badminton court and you can be rest assured that your heartbeat count will race towards the danger mark if you get too invested in what his happening on court.

The 23-year-old did just that and a lot more at the Sports Park Arena in Nanjing as she staged an improbable comeback in the second game to defeat second seed Akane Yamaguchi of Japan 21-16, 24-22 in 55 minutes to reach her second consecutive BWF world championships final.

Sindhu, who has not dropped a game in the championship so far, was trailing 12-19 in the second game when she strung a series of eight straight points to claim her first match point. She needed two more to ultimately close out the match in 55 minutes but she never looked out of sorts at any stage.

Every time Sindhu takes on Nozomi Okuhara or Akane Yamaguchi, the narrative will always revolve around the Japanese players’ ability to play long matches and how the Indian succumbed to their game plans in the last edition of the world championships and the World Superseries Finals respectively.

A lot of water has flown under the bridge since then, with the Indian beating the two formidable Japanese on more than one occasion in the past six months. But it was always believed that they could raise the bar further in major competitions like the world championships and it would be interesting to see how Sindhu manages to counter that.

Aggressive intent

More than the result, it is the way Sindhu countered their game plan with an aggressive intent that made the difference in the ultimate analysis.

For most parts of the last two years, since her Rio Olympics silver medal, Sindhu had been guilty of playing a lot passive badminton. She would play the big rallies and stay in the point while waiting for the opponent to make the mistake.

This was in stark contrast to the Sindhu of old, who relied on her jump smashes and quick drops to force a point. It started to feel like rally players such as Okuhara and Yamaguchi could simply force her into surrender by tiring her out and prolonging the rallies and the match.

But in the quarter-final against Okuhara and in the semi-final against Yamaguchi in Nanjing, it was a completely different Sindhu on display – a Sindhu who was willing to take the initiative and grab a slightest of openings to finish the point.

In both the games against Yamaguchi, it was the Japanese who hit the ground running and opened up sizeable leads, only for the Indian to not just close the gap but turn the tables around with an array of precise drops, cross-court net dribbles and the booming smashes.

One of the points that stood out in the second game was when both the players were engaged in a slugfest after Sindhu had closed the gap to merely two points. The Indian pushed the envelope by attacking the shuttle on the net and had the Japanese sprawling on the court while diving for a cross court dribble.

“In the second set when I was down, I still had hope,” Sindhu said after the match. “Even though she was leading 19-13, I thought to myself that let me try. I told myself that I have lost matches when I was leading and won matches when I was trailing. Each point whether it was an easy win or a silly mistake, I was telling myself that forget the point and focus on the next point.”

She added, “I was prepared for long matches.... When you play rallies against them (Okuhara or Yamaguchi) it can go to 40 strokes, 50 strokes, and I think at that time you have to be consistent yourself. Sometime you lose your mind and hit out. You have to be there all the time.”

Sindhu wasn’t just there on Saturday but was willing to push the limits of her opponents, who for a change looked more tired after every long exchange.

Looking for openings

Even coach Pullela Gopichand admitted that the real difference between winning and losing was the intent that Sindhu showed in going for her shots and looking for winners. “With her height and reach, there is no point she playing the waiting game,” Gopichand told Scroll.in from Nanjing. “She has look for the openings and grab them.”

He added, “Though she was 12-19 down, we knew that Yamaguchi can crack under pressure and at 15-19 I thought it was possible to win from there. Even when she was trailing in the second game, I was just telling her to take the shuttle early and look for the openings and she that very well today.”

On Sunday, Sindhu will take on former world champion Carolina Marin in the final. The Indian lost a close summit clash against the Spaniard in the Rio Olympics two years ago. Having slain two of her summit-clash nemeses, the 23-year-old should be confident of overturning the record in the country where she won her first world championship medal.

Ask Gopichand about what to expect from the final and he says, “It’s not going to be a long final. We will see the conditions tomorrow and play accordingly.”

Marin is herself in fine form and no one can really predict the outcome of Sunday’s encounter. But one things is for sure – we can look forward to yet another classic that could send our heartbeats racing once again.