PBL 2018: PV Sindhu loses to Sung Ji Hyun as Hyderabad Hunters won 5-0 over Chennai Smashers

Premier Badminton League Season 4 is managing to produce some of the best women's singles encounters as every tie features various top class women's singles players in the world such as Carolina Marin, PV Sindhu, Saina Nehwal, Beiwen Zhang and Kristy Gilmour.

The fifth tie of the season 4 featured yet again a mouthwatering women's singles encounter between PV Sindhu (Hyderabad Hunters) and Sung Ji Hyun (Chennai Smashers).

Both these girls have met 14 times on the BWF circuit with Sindhu winning eight out of them. But Sung Ji Hyun had won three out of their last four encounters.

Sindhu had been in red-hot form this month as she won the Bwf world tour finals 2018 defeating current World No. 1 Tai Tzu Ying en route to her title victory and also defeated Carolina Marin in her first match in PBL 2018.

Many would have expected Sindhu to win this match against Sung Ji Hyun quite easily. But Sung Ji's resistance to letting the shuttle fall on her side proved too good for Sindhu as she lost the match 13-15, 15-14, 7-15.

Sindhu's failure to adjust with the drift in Gachibowli Arena resulted in a lot of errors creeping out of her racquet.

Surprisingly she proved to be the only disappointment for Hyderabad Hunters in this tie as rest of her teammates won their respective encounters.

The first match of the tie featured a men's doubles encounter between Kim Sa Rang & Boddin Issara vs B Sumeeth Reddy and OR Chin Chung.

Hyderabad Hunters placed their trump card on Kim and Boddin. Kim and Boddin won 13-15, 15-12, 15-10 to give their team two crucial points.

The next encounter featured veteran Lee Hyun ll up against young Malaysian Chong Wei Fang. Lee just proved too strong for Chong Wei as he won the match 15-11, 15-13. With this Hyderabad team took a 3-0 lead over Chennai Smashers.

Now it was left on Sindhu to finally close the doors for Chennai Smashers in this tie. But things clearly didn't work out for her as she lost her match against Sung Ji Hyun, giving a sign of hope to the Chennai team to bounce back in this tie.

The fourth match also proved to be an edge of the seat encounter as Parupalli Kashyap faced a narrow defeat in his trump match against the Dutchman Mark Culjow. Kashyap lost the match 10-15, 15-14, 13-15. With this Chennai Smashers gained -1 point and trailed 0-4 in this tie.

Parupalli Kashyap

The fifth match too proved to be a nail-biting encounter as the Scratch combination of Kim Sa Rang and Eom Hye Won defeated the duo of Chris Adcock and Gabby Adcock 14-15, 15-12, 15-14. With this win, Hyderabad Hunters defeated Chennai Smashers by 5-0.

With two wins in as many ties, Hyderabad Hunters has strengthened its No. 1 position on the points table.

The next tie will feature Saina Nehwal led North Eastern Warriors up against the HS Prannoy led Delhi Dashers.