Changzhou: Shuttlers PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth lost their quarterfinal matches Friday, drawing curtains on India’s campaign at the China Open badminton tournament here, Friday.
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.
Sindhu had beaten the 20-year-old Chen four times in their last six meetings but n Friday she couldn’t curb her errors or find a way to break her opponent’s superior game plan.
In the opening game, Chen was always in command. Helped by an error-prone Sindhu she opened up a 6-3 lead and extended it to 11-5 at the break. She continued to maintain her dominance and led 15-7 after which she closed out the game quite easily.
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. Chen narrowed the gap to 5-6, but after that Sindhu with some superb net play and bodyline smashes ran away with the game to restore parity.
In the decider, Chen however, did not give Sindhu any chance. She opened up a 7-4 lead and maintained the three-point advantage at the interval.
After the interval, 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 a comeback, by picking up four straight points, but that was her last hurrah. In the end, Sindhu hit a shot long followed by a return at the net, giving Chen five match points and she sealed it with another powerful smash.
Earlier, Srikanth, who had a 3-7 head-to-head record against Momota, couldn’t find a chink in the Japanese’s armour and went down without a fight against the World No.2 in a lop-sided contest.
The results, proved an important point. It was not that the Indians played badly, but their opponents had raised their levels by a couple of notches which the neither Sindhu nor Srikanth could cope with.
Caption
Kento Momota did not give Kidambi Srikanth any opening in their quarterfinal encounter