India’s leading women’s singles player PV Sindhu reached the semi-final of the 2023 Arctic Open Super 500 in Finland on Friday. The world No 13 beat Vietnam’s Thuy Linh Nguyen 20-22, 22-20, 21-18 to set up a last-four clash with Wang Zhi Yi of China on Saturday.
This is the fourth semi-final that the Indian will contest in the 2023 season. She previously reached the finals of the Spain Madrid Masters in April where she lost in straight games to Gregoria Mariska Tunjung of Indonesia. Tunjung also beat her in the semi-final of the Malaysia Masters the following month. In the Canada Open in July, Sindhu went down in straight games to Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi in the semi-final as well.
Sindhu is the lone Indian contender in the tournament after Kidambi Srikanth, Aakarshi Kashyap, Kiran George and the doubles pair of Tanisha Crasto and Ashwini Ponnappa all exited in the Round of 16 stage.
It was a thriller that took 90 minutes to be completed as Sindhu looked to have the first game in hand with a lead of 15-9. But the Vietnamese player fought back and took the opening game 22-20 after forcing Sindhu through some long rallies.
Nguyen, who had already gone the long route in her previous two matches, continued to push Sindhu to the limit in the second game. The Indian won six straight points but Nguyen managed to keep pace with her and was leading 18-14 before Sindhu pulled out from her reserves and came back to seal the second game 22-20 and take the match to a decider.
The fatigue for Nguyen started to set in with Sindhu getting the better of the Vietnamese in certain rallies and despite Nguyen saving three match points, the Indian closed out the third game 21-18 and win 2-1.
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