PV Sindhu created history becoming the first Indian to reach a badminton final at the Asian Games after defeating Akane Yamaguchi 21-17, 15-21, 21-10 on Monday. The third seed will take on world No 1 Tai Tzu Ying in the gold medal match.
After surrendering her early momentum, Sindhu bounced back in the decider in style to move past the world No 2 Yamaguchi and will now have a shot at winning the gold medal.
In the first game, Sindhu and Yamaguchi started with not much to separate them but the Indian started pulling away in the second half. Sindhu’s aggression and Yamaguchi’s errors meant the game was over in 22 minutes, the former winning it 21-17.
The second game started much the same way as the first, with players trading early breaks. Sindhu then opened up a 10-6 lead but, in a sign of things to come, Yamaguchi closed the gap to 10-10 and then took the lead into the mid-game interval.
From there on, there was a momentum shift with Yamaguchi gaining a four-point lead of her own. The Japanese star eventually closed out the game 21-15 to force the decider, with Sindhu struggling to keep the tempo going.
Early in the decider, Sindhu was floored by a lucky net chord and it looked like she could use a pick-me-up. But from there Sindhu didn’t look back once as she stood up and got going again. The Indian No. 1 kept Yamaguchi at an arm’s length throughout the decider and from 3-3, she went on to win 18 of the next 25 points and cruised through the decider.
Earlier, Nehwal went down in straight games against the top seed Tai Tzu Ying, despite going toe-to-toe with the world No 1 for large parts of that game.
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