Changzhou, September 21
PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth lost their quarterfinal matches on Friday, drawing the curtains on India’s campaign at the China Open badminton tournament.
After Srikanth was ousted 9-21 11-21 by reigning world champion Kento Momota of Japan, third seed Sindhu went down fighting 11-21 21-11 15-21 to world No. 6 Chen Yufei of China in a hard-fought contest, which lasted 52 minutes.
In the opening game, Chen opened up a 6-3 lead, and went 11-5 up with a powerful return to which the Indian had no answer. After the break, Sindhu took two points but there was a weak return at the net and another stroke went out. Sindhu’s errors, coupled with Chen’s superb placements, saw the Chinese move to 15-7.
Chen dictated the pace and punished any error from the Indian, who went out a few times. Eventually the Chinese sealed the game with a sharp smash. After the change of ends, Sindhu tried to engage her opponent in rallies by varying the pace and it worked as she led 6-1. However, mental fatigue seemed to affect her judgements as Chen narrowed the lead to 5-6. Chen shot a few shots wide, allowing Sindhu to make it 10-6. But she twice hit the net before a thunderous smash earned her an 11-8 advantage at the break. The Indian extended the lead to 15-10 and eventually roared back into the contest when her rival hitting long again. In the decider, Chen led 7-4 and maintained the three-point advantage at the breather. Chen returned with a barrage of strokes on Sindhu’s backhand and aided by the Indian’s errors moved to a 14-8 lead. Sindhu showed signs of recovery, pocketing four straight points, which included a crucial video referral, but hit wide again as the score read 16-12 in Chen’s favour.
In the end, Sindhu hit a long shot followed by a return at the net, giving Chen five match points, and Chen sealed it with another powerful smash.
Earlier, Srikanth went down without a fight against the world No. 2 in a lopsided contest. Srikanth lagged 1-5 but recovered to 4-5 with three straight points but couldn’t put up a fight as Momota surged to a huge 19-6 lead before pocketing the first game. In the second game 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. — PTI