Olympic medalist and Indian top-seed PV Sindhu defeat unseeded Thailand’s Nitchaon Jindapol in three straight games and book her place in the women’s singles quarter-finals of the All England Open Badminton Championships. After losing the second set, Sindhu comeback in the game an won the game by 21-13, 13-21, 21-18 in the second-round. Now, Sindhu will face the seventh seed Nozomi Okuhara of Japan in the quarter-final game. Sindhu maintained a healthy lead in the opening game and won it comfortably in just 19 minutes and 34 seconds. With 2013 champion Ratchanok Inthanon smashing out in the opening round, the onus was on Jindapol to go far in the tournament, and she did produce some superb strokes, but Sindhu was always a step forward.
In the first game, Sindhu started well, with a large lead of 7-3 won all long rally. Sindhu played a brilliant backhand return to took 8-3 and entered the interval with another accurate stroke at the back of the court. After the interval, Sindhu moved to a 15-7 lead and kept storing on the misery on the Thai who kept hitting the net and wide to steal points. After few minutes Sindhu clutched a massive game point advantage with a tricky return at 20-13.
In the second game, Jindapol anticipated better and appeared more attacking in her approach took a 7-3 lead with a straight smash. She used a reverse slab and dominated the rally next to zoom to an 11-3 advantage at the half-break. Sindhu narrowed the gap by breaking rallies and seemed closely with 10-14. Jindapol experienced a lucky net chord, and Sindhu gave one long as the Thai shuttler lead 17-10 with another superb return back. Sindhu closed the gap to 13-17 with three- straight points with some excellent returns. Bad judgement and two successive wide shots from Sindhu gave Jindapol seven-game points, and she won it with a smash to explode back into the contest and put Sindhu in trouble.
After winning the match, Sindhu said,“Till the last point, I fought and finally won the game by 21-18. I was just assuming about the next point as I was trailing, I had to remain focused on each point. I made too many unforced mistakes there.”
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