Badminton: Sindhu raises Indian hopes of first gold at Rio

Sindhu warned the top seed that her best is yet to come, playing a mental game before the final.

According to India Today, Sindhu overpowered the second top-ranked female shuttler in the world with a spectacular 22-20, 21-19 hard-fought victory at the Barra Olympic Park Riocentro – Pavillion to earn her very first Olympic semifinal round ticket.

She has now given sport-lovers back home a reason to stay emotionally invested in the Games. The match lasted for 54 minutes. “I would give my heart out for that and play my best”.

World number 10 Sindhu, who has a 1-3 win-loss record against Nozomi, has never beaten the Japanese since the Asian Youth Under-19 Championship in 2012 and has lost on three consecutive occasions in 2014, 2015 and the last being Asian Team Championship in Hyderabad earlier in February this year. Sindhu showed some good judgement and accumulated points riding on her opponents unforced errors but Wang still entered the break with a 11-8 lead. You just don’t look at the scores, there were a lot of rallies long, and she was not leaving anything.

Not to be outdone, Sindhu drew level with a clever placement and went into game and match point with a powerful smash into Wang’s body. Even she did not leave and she was lifting everything.

“If there was a turning point it was that I was really patient”.

A superb cross-court smash and an equally brilliant drop saw Sindhu reach her first point. However, it was Sindhu who held her nerves to clinch the game and match 21-19. “I hope there will be many more to come”, she said after the match.

On Tuesday, the World No.10 Sindhu stunned London Olympic sliver medallist Yihan in straight games. I have played Wang Yihan several times and sometimes she plays a different game. At this juncture Okuhara picked up two points to stay put in the game at 17-18. She was running away with the set and led her rival 18-13 with some fantastic cross-court smashes. P.V. Sindhu (IND) of India reacts during play against Nozomi Okuhara (JPN) of Japan. “Each and every point was very important for me”, he said.

“There were big rallies, she was attacking well”.

The Indian, double World Badminton Championships bronze medallist, came up with performance of her career as she beat her Japanese rival comprehensively.

Sindhu reminded that when one is pitted against a world No 2, there is nothing called luck factor as one needs to really pull all stops to win a do-or-die encounter like this. “I made some mistakes at the end”, was how she summed up the game.