PV Sindhu’s disappointing end to the India Open Super 750 event has made her realise that she needs to be more consistent with her performance in case of brilliant results. The former champion and Olympic medalist Sindhu entered the event as one of the highlight figures of the Indian women’s team, but destiny had other plans. The Indian ace shuttler lost her match against Vietnam’s Thuy Linh Nguyen.
On Wednesday, January 14, Sindhu, who had recently lost her semi-finals match of the Malaysia Open against China’s Zhi Yi Wang, was knocked out by Nguyen in the opening round match. Sindhu made a good start, securing the victory in the first set by 22-20, but suffered in the remaining two, with Nguyen securing dominant victories by 21-12 and 21-15. This was Nguyen’s third straight win against a top-ranked shuttler like Sindhu.
The Indian ace shuttler had previously won the women’s title in the 2017 edition. Disappointed by her performance, Sindhu believes she gave the opposite of what was expected from her. Somehow her techniques and skills failed to end in a positive result this time.
She said, “At this level, you cannot expect easy wins or get easy points. She is a tricky player, she has good strokes and there were long rallies, often with more than 20 shots, and it was important to control them. I knew I had to keep the tempo of the game going and keep the shuttle on the court but it didn’t work.”
Sindhu believes she needs to accept the defeat and move ahead to return in the next tournament with more hard work and practice.
“Definitely I need to be a lot more consistent, specially when I am giving away easy, continuous points, I need to break the flow after losing a point,” she added.
But 17-year-old Tanvi Sharma, despite her loss to World No. 2 Wang, gained attention for her hard-fought competitive spirit. In the opening game, Tanvi held the dominance and took the win by 22-20. The second round saw her slipping to Wang, who won by 21-18. Meanwhile, the finals game saw the youngster losing herself against the opponent and went into a deep hole at 13-21.
Meanwhile, India’s HS Prannoy defeated Hong Kong’s Cheuk Yiu Lee by sets of 22-20, 21-18. On the other hand, the doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy ended in a walkover spot from the USA’s Zhi Yi Chen and Presley Smith.
