Guangzhou: Rising shuttler PV Sindhu created history by becoming the first Indian woman singles player to ensure herself a medal at the World Badminton Championships, while a podium finish remained elusive for Saina Nehwal as she suffered a straight-game defeat on Friday.
Before Sindhu, Prakash Padukone won a medal in the World Championships in 1983 when he bagged a bronze in the men singles event in Copenhagen, while the women’s doubles duo of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa had claimed another bronze for India in the last edition of the tournament in London in 2011.
Playing in her maiden World Championships, 18-year-old Sindhu, seeded 10th, scored an upset win over local favourite Shixian Wang to enter the semifinals here. The Indian took just 55 minutes to get the better of her World No. 8 and seventh seeded Chinese opponent 21-18, 21-17.
The London Olympics bronze-medallist and a quarterfinalist in the last two editions as well, Saina was erratic and could not hold her nerves as she went down rather tamely 21-23, 9-21 against Korean Yeon Ju Bae.
Parupalli Kashyap, who was playing on the adjacent court to Saina, played out of his skin but could not get across world number three Du Pengyu of China in the men’s singles quarterfinal.
His gallant fight ended with a 21-16, 20-22, 15-21 loss in an hour and 15 minutes.
World No. 12 Sindhu, who had earlier also defeated Wang once in their only meeting before this, will take on Ratchanok Intanon in the last four.
Against Wang, Sindhu relied on her smashes, besides hitting as many as 19 clear winners.
The 18-year-old Sindhu started to dominate from the word go. After initially being tied at 3-3, the Hyderabadi surged ahead to open a slight 6-3 lead.
Wang, however, managed to reduce the margin to 12-13. But Sindhu regained her composure pretty quickly to pocket three consecutive points to once again move ahead and she wrapped up the game 21-18.
In the second game also, Sindhu straightaway took a 6-2 lead before four straight points from Wang served as a warning bell to the Indian.
Tied at 6-6, Sindhu roared back with three consecutive points to move ahead yet again. And thereafter she made sure to maintain a lead of at least a point or two.
Comfortably placed at 20-16, Sindhu wasted just one match point before she capped it off in style to seal the game 21-17.
Sindhu is having a dream run at the tournament as she had stunned defending champion Yihan Wang of China in the pre-quarterfinals.
She said:”I am very happy with my game as everything went well. I will work hard for tomorrow’s match.” (PTI)