Rio Olympic silver-medallist PV Sindhu failed to replicate her good show in the Singapore Open so far as she went down fighting against second-seed Nozomi Okuhara in straight games in the semi-final clash of the tournament on Saturday.
The 23-year-old from Hyderabad looked completely out of confidence as she struggled to keep pace and got most of her shots wrong to slump to a 7-21, 11-21 defeat at the hands of her Japanese opponent Okuhara in a one-sided last-four clash of the women’s singles event that lasted just 37 minutes.
Despite the defeat, the Indian shuttler overall enjoys a slight 7-6 advantage over her Japanese opponent in the head-to-head record.
In 2017, Sindhu and Okuhara played against each other in an epic final of the World Championship that lasted one hour and 50 minutes —something which is still regarded as of the best matches of the women’s singles event in the history of the game.
With Sindhu’s loss, India’s challenge in the Singapore Open has also folded.
Okuhara, on the other hand, will now lock horns with Taiwanese shuttler Tai Tzu Ying for a place in the summit showdown of the tournament.
Earlier, London Olympic bronze-medallist Saina Nehwal, eighth seed Kidambi Srikanth and Sameer Verma all bowed out of the tournament after losing their respective quarterfinal clashes on Friday.
Source: Zee News