PV Sindhu ended up with the silver medal in the BWF World Badminton Championship for the second consecutive year after she was forced into an abject surrender by a rampaging Carolina Marin in the women’s singles summit clash in Nanjing on Sunday.
If it was the tenacity and endurance of Nozomi Okuhara that had proved to be the undoing of the Indian, she was no match to Marin’s ferocious pace and aggressive game plan as she lost 21-19, 21-10 in 45 minutes.
The way Marin had been playing in the championship it was imperative for Sindhu to make a strong start and wrest the initiative early on. The 23-year-old did manage to stand her ground in the opening game despite the Spaniard controlling the pace of the rallies. She also ended up making mistakes while going for the lines.
Sindhu was guilty of once again being a bit passive as she employed her potent jump smash for the first time after 16 points and her four-point lead at 15-11 was only thanks to the errors from her opponent.
But Marin turned the game on its head as she won five straight points to take a one-point lead and then managed to keep the momentum going to draw first blood.
The second game was nothing more than a blur for Sindhu as Marin came out all guns blazing and raced to a 5-0 lead. She then simply bulldozed her opponent to clinch her third world championship title.
There was very little Sindhu could do to stop Marin once the Rio Olympic champion turned on the speed of the rallies and the volume of her shrieks in the second game.
