PV Sindhu played the best game of her career, but Carolina Marin was just one notch higher

PV Sindhu fell on her back for a couple of seconds, trying to process it all. She stared up at the dark prefab ceiling of Rio’s badminton arena. She had just played the end-all, decisive game of her career – bright and brave, but she had not won.

There were no immediate tears visible, but her disappointment showed that she had not reached the goal she had set out to achieve. There was no pump of the fist, Sindhu’s trademark image during the Olympic tournament. There was no cool aggression on her face – just exhaustion and contemplation.

On the other side of the net, Carolina Marin had also collapsed. She lay face-down, shuddering with tears of disbelief. The shuttler from Spain had just defeated Sindhu 19-21 21-12 21-15 on Friday to win the Olympic gold medal. Sindhu got up, walked the length of the court and congratulated her Spanish counterpart, a gracious hug in a bitter moment of defeat, an elegant gesture of sportsmanship.

The final was a contest between aggressors after all: Sindhu, a mini-aggressor, Marin, a maxi-aggressor, not in the pejorative sense of hostile play or pent-up aggression, but simply with an inclination to play badminton within the remit of the rules. Sindhu had done so, but to no avail.

Maximum aggression

Indeed, Sindhu was a mini-aggressor – tentative and cautious at times, but scarcely a daredevil, bereft of the boldness and pluck of her previous matches in Rio. Sindhu’s suffocation attacks were absent – attack, suffocate, attack, suffocate, a bold tactic that had yielded victory against Yihan Wang and Nozomi Okuhara in the knockout rounds. Not so against, Marin.

The Spanish is a maxi-aggressor, a refined badminton pit-bull. Her rise in the sport has been meteoric, based on assertive attacking and a fine all-round technique, an avant-garde dame in Spanish badminton. She constantly attacks, her sole method of defence, relentless in pursuit of every next point.

And so it was in the final, a fest of forward-minded badminton with the first game played out at an excruciating pace. A fine drop shot gave Marin an early 5-2 lead, but both her and Sindhu alike, racked up the errors. At 6-11, Sindhu displayed a first glimpse of brilliance with a neat drop shot. She rallied, adjusting her service that had been too long, but fell back again, 16-19. Courtesy of a five-point haul, Sindhu won the first game, the winning point a stretched backhand that looped over Marin. The Hyderabadi pumped her fist twice.

In the second game, maxi-aggressor Marin redeemed herself with more zeal and assertiveness. The momentum tilted: Marin was now also a through-the-ceiling player, a testament to her ranking and double world title. Her angled drop shots, time and again, carved open Sindhu’s defences. She tested Sindhu’s retrieving. In response the Indian tried to draw her opponent to the net, but Marin ran away with the second game, 12-21.

In the deciding game, Marin became a prancing queen, a pouncing princess and drop shot damsel. She overwhelmed Sindhu, who retaliated with a few smashes, often aimed at the Spanish’s body. At 10-10, Marin requested a time-out, a clever interruption to break Sindhu’s comeback propulsion. Marin had repeatedly demanded for the shuttle to be replaced, treading a fine, but correct line between sportsmanship and gamesmanship.

The grandest stage

“At the crucial times, Marin played a notch higher,” said Pullela Gopichand, Sindhu’s coach. “I told her to attack the sides, but she made crucial errors at 10-10.”

Marin got four more points and never looked back. With brutal dominance, punctuated by her all-round superiority, she skipped left and right, retrieved from every corner with sang-froid, delivering controlled kill shots. Sindhu was in an audience, feeding Marin’s game plan, facing steep smashes and firepower. The Spanish broke down every small movement of her's. At 14-10, the inevitable loomed.

Two great competitors had shared the greatest and grandest stage, but, deservedly, Marin prevailed. Afterward, Sindhu shunned any defeatist attitude. Rio 2016 was an educational laboratory, part of a steep learning curve. Future All England Opens and Tokyo 2020 herald much promise for Sindhu.