Sindhu loses to Okuhara in final

Bangkok, July 15 

PV Sindhu’s title drought continued as she suffered a straight-game defeat against Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara in the summit clash of the Thailand Open.

Okuhara dominated the proceedings to beat the Indian 21-15 21-18 in exactly 50 minutes.

It was Sindhu’s third disappointment in a final this year following her defeats in the summit clash of the India Open and the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. Sindhu reached the semifinals and quarterfinals in her last two tournaments — in Malaysia and Indonesia — before this one.

Okuhara took a 6-2 lead in the opening game but Sindhu came up with some aggressive crosscourt smashes to reduce the margin to 15-17. But Sindhu committed unforced errors and the Japanese pocketed four straight points to wrap up the game.

Sindhu raced to a 5-1 lead in the second game but some unforced errors and wrong judgements from the Indian allowed the Japanese to pocket five straight points to make it 7-6 in her favour. 

Both the players went neck-and-neck thereafter till 14-all when Okuhara notched up a 17-16 lead over her opponent. Sindhu levelled the scores at 18-all. 

However, some bad line calls also marred Sindhu’s evening as Okuhara clinched three straight points to pocket the game and the title. — PTI