PV Sindhu loses to Nozomi Okuhara in Thailand Open final

P V Sindhu suffered defeat against Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara in the final clash of the USD 350,000 Thailand Open World Tour Super 500 badminton tournament in Bangkok on Sunday. The Indian lost 21-15 21-18 in straight sets in a match that took exactly 50 minutes.

Post this victory, Okuhara has taken a 6-5 head to head lead over Sindhu. The Hyderabadi struggled with her consistency throughout the encounter as fourth seeded Okuhara dominated throughout the match to beat the Indian. Following her defeats in the summit clash of the India Open and Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, this became the third last stage failure for PV Sindhu.

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Sindhu who had an ankle strain ahead of the CWG and missed the Uber Cup final, reached semifinal and quarterfinal in her last two tournaments in Malaysia and Indonesia before the Thailand Open. She looked good at some stages in the game but the Japanese controlled the proceedings from the word go. She looked in complete command over the game.

Okuhara took no time to get her grip on the match by taking a 6-2 lead in the opening game. Sindhu did not give up and used her long reach to great effect and came up with some aggressive smashes to reduce the margin to 15-17. But Okuhara came up with some aggressive net play which resulted in unforced errors by the India and the Japanese pocketed four straight points to seal the first game.

Sindhu came turned tables around in the second game and showed aggressive intent at the initial part, clinching a 5-1 lead. But again some unforced errors and wrong judgments allowed the Japanese to pocket five straight points to nullify the lead that Sindhu managed, and the score read 7-6 in her favour.

Both players fought really hard from their on to make it 14-14 but Okuhara once again pressed the gas and sailed to a lead with the scoreline reading 16-17. Sindhu came back strong and made it 18 apiece before the Japanese scored three straight points, winning the Thailand Open title.

PV Sindhu dominated over the Japanese at the All England Championships in their last meeting. The Japanese took a fitting revenge to defeat the tall Indian shuttler in straight sets.