Bangkok, May 15: Indian badminton ace PV Sindhu squandered a one-game advantage to go down fighting to top seed Akane Yamaguchi of Japan in the quarterfinals, but the ace men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty entered the semifinal of the Thailand Open here on Friday.
Sindhu lost 21-19, 18-21, 15-21 to world number three Yamaguchi in the women’s singles quarterfinal match that lasted just over one hour in the USD 500,000 Super 500 tournament.
Despite the loss, world number 12 Sindhu leads the head-to-head record against Yamaguchi 15-13. In the Malaysia Open Super 1000 tournament in January, Sindhu had prevailed after Yamaguchi retired from their quarterfinal game due to an injury.
Lakshya Sen too lost his men’s singles quarterfinal match to second seed Kunlavut Vitidsarn of Thailand, going down 19-21, 16-21 in 53 minutes.
However, there was some positive news in the doubles event, as top seeds Satwiksairaj and Chirag advanced to the semifinals with a commanding 21-12, 21-13 victory over the sixth-seeded Japanese pair of Takumi Nomura and Yuichi Shimogami.
The Indian duo will next face the third-seeded Malaysian pair, Goh Sze Fei and Nur Izzuddin.
Earlier, Sindhu’s match was a tightly contested affair, with both players locked at 11-11 before Yamaguchi edged ahead 13-11. Sindhu, however, fought back to level the score and, after the pair were tied again at 19-19, she held her nerve to win the next two points and clinch the opening game.
In the second game, Sindhu raced to a 5-1 lead and initially looked set to carry the momentum forward. However, she allowed her long-time rival to claw her way back and level the score at 11-11. From 7-11 down, Yamaguchi dominated proceedings, winning seven consecutive points to move ahead 14-11.
By then, the momentum had swung in Yamaguchi’’ favour, and she went on to take the game 21-18.
In the decider, Sindhu was not in her elements as she trailed all through. From trailing 0-5, the Indian narrowed the gap to 11-12 but Yamaguchi switched gears to take the decider 21-15 and win the match.
Sindhu later rued letting go of the 1-5 lead in the second game, while also admitting that unforced errors affected her game.
“I felt I made simple errors, because I was leading in the second game. It was not like we were doing the rally, it was not like easy points, but maybe I should have converted it into a win,” she said after the match.
She conceded that she should have been consistent so that she could win the crucial points.
Sixth seed Sindhu had reached the quarterfinals after beating Denmark’s Amalie Schulz 21-13, 21-15 on Thursday. (PTI)
