Indonesia Open 2019: PV Sindhu beats Chen Yufei to enter final

PV Sindhu continued her resurgence to upset the second seed Chen Yufei and book a place in the final of the Indonesia Open in Jakarta on Saturday. The Indian needed 46 minutes to dismiss the challenge of the reigning All England Open champion 21-19, 21-10.

This was the first time the Rio Olympic silver medallist reached the final of this prestigious Super 1000 tournament, and this is also her first final this year.

In the summit clash, the Indian will take on World No. 4 Akane Yamaguchi for the 15th time after the Japanese stunned the top seed and World No. 1 Tai Tzu Ying 21-9, 21-15.

Sindhu, who had struggled in her first couple of rounds this week, put up a highly impressive display against World No. 2 Nozomi Okuhara yesterday in her 21-14, 21-7 win. She picked up from where she left and, except for a slight hiccup initially, the Indian was entirely in control of the proceedings against the Chinese star.

Yufei, who had won three titles this year, had the early advantage at 18-14 before Sindhu found her rhythm and range. She pocketed the next three points with her fiery smashes and levelled it all up to go past her opponent and get a game point at 20-19. Showing glimpses of the form that earned her the BWF World Tour Finals title last December, Sindhu made no mistake in converting her first game point to take the game.

Sindhu refused to be troubled in the second game too. With her barrage of attacking shots working like a dream, the World No. 5 built an 11-8 lead and slowly kept adding points to her kitty to rattle the Chinese. The gap between them was soon of a massive 10 points, and there was no way for Chen to come back from that deficit against Sindhu who looked determined and motivated than ever.