Asian Games 2018: Sindhu, Nehwal lose as India is knocked out of women’s badminton team event

Ace shuttler PV Sindhu rallied hard to bring-up a hard-fought victory over world number one Akane Yamaguchi, but Saina Nehwal failed to overcome Nozomi Okuhara as the Indian badminton team crushed out of the 18^th Asian Games team event in Jakarta on Monday.

Sindhu, who had defeated the Japanese in the semi-finals of the World Championships – where she finished second for the successive time – showed tremendous grit and rich vein of form to beat Yamaguchi 21-18, 21-19 in straight sets.

But her hard work of putting India 1-0 ahead was undone by three consecutive defeats knocking them out of the competition.

Also Read: Asian Games 2018: Vinesh Phogat wins India’s maiden women’s wrestling gold

The doubles pair of N Sikki Reddy and Arathi Sunil playing the next encounter lost tamely to uki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota, handing Japan the opportunity to level the game at 1-1. Making too many unforced errors they lost 15-21, 6-21 in straight sets.

Then Nehwal playing the crucial singles encounter against Okuhara, lacked the grit but somehow fought back from a set down to take the game to the deciding set, where she eventually lost after a marathon battle.

The game lasted for an hour and 11 minutes before Nehwal went down fighting 11-21, 25-23, 16-21. The Olympic bronze medallist initially struggled with her court movements, making several unforced errors. At one point almost every shot of her was either way out of the line or straight at the nets.

Also Read: Asian Games 2018: Lakshay Sheoran wins silver in men’s shooting event

But she somehow bounced back to win the second set and take the game to a decider.

India was left with a must-win game in the fourth battle, where Sindhu wand Ashwini Ponappa failed the match the might of the reigning Olympic champions  Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi,, to eventually go lose 13-21, 12-21 and give Japan a comfortable 3-1 victory.

“It was a tough draw facing Japan in the first match. I was keen to give India a good start from my side. The doubles players also did well but the Japanese played a very tactical game. Saina also gave her 100 percent, it was 16-16 in the third set and few points made the difference,” Sindhu was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times after the defeat.

“Somewhere down the line, the Japanese (Miaki and Ayaka) played good strategy, they made us made mistakes. The top-10 teams in the world are the same standard, we can’t say they are tough or easy. Though each player is different,” she added.