PV Sindhu stormed into the final of the Badminton World Championships with a stunning 21-16, 24-22 straight game victory over Akane Yamaguchi of Japan in Nanjing, China, on Saturday.
The top Indian shuttler defeated Yamaguchi in a 55-minute clash to progress into the final of the World Championships for the second consecutive time and will face Spaniard Carolina Marin on Sunday. Two-time champion Marin, who made a recovery from being a game down to beat sixth-seed He Bingjiao of China 13-21, 21-16, 21-13 in an intriguing semi-final to reach the summit clash.
Sindhu showed immense grit and determination to bounce back after trailing big in both the games to advance into her successive final. Yamaguchi had begun well and raced to a 5-0 lead before the Indian fought back to make it 4-7. The Japanese though looked confident and led 11-8 at the break.
It was, however, a different game when both returned after the break. Sindhu suddenly had found all her attacking strokes and moved swiftly in the court, in contrast, Yamaguchi seemed to have lost it. From 12-12 Sindhu snatched six straight points to make it 18-12 and followed it up with smashes to seal the first game after the World No. 2 had put up a good fight for a brief period.
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Sindhu once again conceded lead in the second game with Yamaguchi re-finding her touch. She engaged Sindhu in long rallies and took a 7-3 lead. She then increased the deficit to 11-7 at the break.
Both the shuttlers went toe-on-toe against each other but Yamaguchi always held the upper-hand and moved to 19-12 as the game looked set to go into another three-game battle after the first semi-final.
But trailing by seven-game points, Sindhu brought out her best. Her opponent needed just two points and looked poised to take the game into the decider. And that is when Sindhu who was overpowered until that point recovered with excellent game reading and fearless approach to move to match point.
She went all-out in her attacks and forced Yamaguchi into unforced errors, mixing them with net dribbles and smashes to snatch eight consecutive points and lead 20-19 at game point.
The Japanese then levelled with a body smash but followed it with a silly serve into the wrong side of the court before hitting it wide to give Sindhu the lead once again. A 41-shot rally battle then took place with Yamaguchi winning to level the game once again at 22-22.
Yamaguchi then hit out twice to hand over the victory to Sindhu, who will face Marin in a repeat of the Rio Olympics final.