Indian badminton sensation PV Sindhu failed to replicate her magical comeback against Akane Yamaguchi in her second group match at the Dubai World Superseries Finals 2016 and went down to Sun Yu on Thursday. The Rio Olympic silver medallist was ahead in the second game but could not hold on to it as the World No. 6 Sun came back to win it, 21-15, 21-17 in 49 minutes.
The Chinese had toppled the Olympic champion Carolina Marin in her opening group match yesterday in straight games and she came into this match riding high on confidence. It was obvious from the start when Sun Yu looked thoroughly in control of the proceedings.
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Showing superb accuracy and brilliant retrieval skills, the Chinese kept the Indian on the backfoot throughout the first game. She opened up an 8-4 lead and simply kept on widening the gap further and further after the mid-game interval.
From 14-9, she went on a sizzling run of six straight points to quickly reach a flurry of game points at 20-9. Right at that time, Sindhu rediscovered her touch and managed to cut down the huge deficit to 15-20 by grabbing six points on the trot before the higher-ranked player wrapped up the game, 21-15.
Sindhu squandered a lead in Game 2
The two had met at the China Open final last month where the Indian used her fabulous attacking game to stave off the Chinese in three games. She brought some of that courage and intensity right from the start in the second game to go up 4-2 much to the delight of the pro-Indian crowd at the Hamdan Sports Complex.
Sun Yu, however, levelled matters at 5-5 in an absorbing tussle only to see the Indian running away to an 11-8 lead.
Sitting pretty with a healthy four-point advantage at 13-9, the Indian let the Chinese come back into this contest, who made it all square at 15-15. Sun Yu kept on gaining in confidence as Sindhu’s error count started mounting.
The Chinese inched ahead 16-15 and even though the Indian made a brief resurgence for 17-17, Sun raced away to the finish line soon afterwards.
Sindhu will play her final group match in an Olympic final rematch against Carolina Marin on Thursday. A lot will depend on the Spaniard’s match against Akane Yamaguchi tonight as to who can still have the chance to qualify from this group.
