Sindhu, Srikanth ousted

Changzhou, September 21 

PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth lost their quarterfinal matches on Friday, drawing the curtains on India’s campaign at the China Open badminton tournament.

After Srikanth was ousted 9-21 11-21 by reigning world champion Kento Momota of Japan, third seed Sindhu went down fighting 11-21 21-11 15-21 to world No. 6 Chen Yufei of China in a hard-fought contest, which lasted 52 minutes.

In the opening game, Chen opened up a 6-3 lead, and went 11-5 up with a powerful return to which the Indian had no answer. After the break, Sindhu took two points but there was a weak return at the net and another stroke went out. Sindhu’s errors, coupled with Chen’s superb placements, saw the Chinese move to 15-7.

Chen dictated the pace and punished any error from the Indian, who went out a few times. Eventually the Chinese sealed the game with a sharp smash. After the change of ends, Sindhu tried to engage her opponent in rallies by varying the pace and it worked as she led 6-1. However, mental fatigue seemed to affect her judgements as Chen narrowed the lead to 5-6. Chen shot a few shots wide, allowing Sindhu to make it 10-6. But she twice hit the net before a thunderous smash earned her an 11-8 advantage at the break. The Indian extended the lead to 15-10 and eventually roared back into the contest when her rival hitting long again. In the decider, Chen led 7-4 and maintained the three-point advantage at the breather. Chen returned with a barrage of strokes on Sindhu’s backhand and aided by the Indian’s errors moved to a 14-8 lead. Sindhu showed signs of recovery, pocketing four straight points, which included a crucial video referral, but hit wide again as the score read 16-12 in Chen’s favour.

In the end, Sindhu hit a long shot followed by a return at the net, giving Chen five match points, and Chen sealed it with another powerful smash. 

Earlier, Srikanth went down without a fight against the world No. 2 in a lopsided contest. Srikanth lagged 1-5 but recovered to 4-5 with three straight points but couldn’t put up a fight as Momota surged to a huge 19-6 lead before pocketing the first game. In the second game Momota moved from 4-3 to 13-3 with nine straight points. He continued to dominate the proceedings to seal the contest without much effort. — PTI