India Grand Prix Gold: PV Sindhu sets up final clash against Saina Nehwal

Lucknow, Jan 25 (IANS): India’s two star shuttlers Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu have set up a blockbuster women’s singles summit clash after registering hard-fought semifinal victories at the $120,000 India Grand Prix Gold here Saturday.

Second seed Sindhu took sweet revenge of her last year’s final’s loss by packing off defending champion and Indonesian fourth seed Lindaweni Fanetri 21-6, 12-21, 21-17 in an hour and two minutes to take a 4-2 lead in career meetings.

The World Championship bronze medallist kept her cool in the deciding stages of the match to send the crowd in raptures at the Babu Banarasi Das Indoor Stadium by taking the winning point.

Earlier, top seed Saina reached her first final since the French Open Super Series in October 2012 when she lost to Japan’s Minatsu Mitani. The World No.9 had to dig deep to oust 2010 Youth Olympics silver medallist and Chinese sixth seed Xuan Deng 21-14, 17-21, 21-19 in an hour and 20 minutes.

Saina won the first game with relative ease but the Chinese player showed great determination to claw back from 10-14 down to take a 17-15 lead in the second. Saina levelled the scores at 17-all but Xuan won the next four points to take the game and push the contest into a decider.

Saina was in big trouble early on in the third game with the World No.49 taking a 7-0 lead. But the Indian showed pure grit to draw parity at 8-all.

Xuan once again opened up a big lead (13-8) and it appeared as if an upset was on the cards. But Saina used her cross court smashes and steep drops to make it 17-all before taking the lead for the first time in the third game (18-17).

It was the experience of the Hyderabadi that made the difference as she pressurised Xuan by changing the pace of the rallies and then kept her nerve to clinch the final berth on the very first match point of the to end the marathon contest.

An emotional Saina was almost on the verge of tears as she walked back to the dressing room after acknowledging the support of the home crowd, who had turned up in huge numbers to cheer her.

Meanwhile, sixth seed Kidambi Srikanth also had to fight it out in the men’s singles semifinal against friend and seventh seed H.S. Prannoy, beating him 21-18, 22-20 in 50 minutes.

In the final, the reigning national champion will shoulder the responsibility of keeping the title in India when he takes on Chinese ninth seed Xue Song, who made short work of India’s Aditya Prakash, beating him 21-10, 21-7 in 35 minutes.

The Indian challenge in doubles also came to an end as Chinese fourth seed Li Junhui and Liu Yuchen beat second seeds Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Akshay Dewalkar 21-18, 21-15 in the men’s match which lasted 33 minutes.