India’s campaign at the China Open BWF World Tour Super 1000 tournament came to an end on Friday as PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth were both knocked out in the quarter-finals in contrasting fashion.
Sindhu, the third seed, lost to China’s only remaining hope in the women’s singles, Chen Yufei, in three games, while Srikanth was outclassed by world champion Kento Momota in two.
Sindhu was rusty to begin the match as she allowed Chen to dictate terms in the first game, losing it without much of a fight 11-21. The Olympic and world championship silver medallist put up a better show in the second game, which turned out to be almost like a mirror image of the first, with the Indian winning it 21-11.
With the crowd in Changzhou backing her, Chen regained the momentum in the deciding game and kept an arm’s length between her and Sindhu. Trailing 8-14, Sindhu briefly fought back and won four straight points to make it 12-14, only to concede the next four points to all but hand the match to her opponent.
Chen had five match-point opportunities and needed only one of them as she won the decider 21-15.
Earlier in the day, Srikanth lost to Momota 9-21, 11-21 in a lop-sided contest. This was the former world No 1’s third straight defeat to the Japanese this year. Srikanth was no match for Momota, who has been in sensational form since making a comeback after serving a one-year ban for visiting an illegal casino.
Srikanth lagged 1-5 initially before recovering to 4-5 with three straight points but couldn’t put up a fight after that as Momota surged to a huge 19-6 lead in the first game.
The second game was no different as Momota moved from 4-3 to 13-3 with nine straight points. He continued to dominate the proceedings to seal the contest without much effort.
PV Sindhu will be in action later in her quarter-final against China’s Chen Yufei.
With inputs from PTI
