Today, on 19th August, 2016, P.V. Sindhu would be playing the finals of the Women’s single badminton in the Rio Olympics. When someone asked PV Sindhu, after her hard-fought 22-20, 21-19 win over Chinese World No. 2 Wang Yihan, if she was eyeing the medal, she shot back, “I was just thinking about the game”.
Advertisement
With yesterday’s brilliant show, Sindhu also went one better than her senior Saina Nehwal, bronze medal victor in London four years ago, and became the first ever Indian to enter the summit clash of the shuttle game in the quadrennial sports spectacle.
Whenever Sindhu looked to take a comfortable lead, Yihan would breath down her neck with a few points.
Growing in confidence as the match wore on, Sindhu won 10 consecutive points to close out the match with a barrage of overhead smashes.
Talking after Tuesday’s quarter-final, Sindhu asserted that she is determined to produce a similar effort in the semi-finals and create history by becoming the first Indian shuttler – male or female – to enter the Olympic final.
The 21-year-old will now face world No. 1 left-hander Carolina Marin (Spain) in the final on Friday at 7:30 pm for a Ggold medal. I would like to congratulate her and her coach Gopichand.
The 21-year-old Indian now stood just a win away from assuring India an elusive medal at the Rio Olympics. On Thursday, Sindhu fronts up against Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara for a place in the gold medal match in the women’s singles.
In 2015, PV Sindhu claimed her 3 successive Macau Open title. Thus, Okuhara’s usual low unforced error rate still hurt her campaign to pull up square or ahead when it really counted.
Excited to make the final in her maiden Olympics, the lanky girl said: “I hope I would give my best tomorrow as well”. Sindhu rattled Okuhara with two straight points as the Japanese hit wide and failed to return a fierce smash from the Indian. Now all eyes would be on the screen to watch the athlete play in the final of the event.
“Both she and Gopichand are working very hard, if she plays like this then she will surely win tomorrow”.
“Congrats to @Pvsindhu1 for her spectacular victory today”. As Srikanth later said, there was no strategy involved, “You can’t have a strategy against players like Lin Dan”. She won the season ending World Super series finals in Dubai last December without losing a single game in five matches. And most recently, Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara fought back from 14-17 in the rubber to reign as the latest All England heroine, right on her 21 birthday!
Advertisement
In the course of this tournament, Sindhu has used her wingspan to great advantage, combining her assured movements with the ability to retrieve shuttles using her reach. We had long rallies and I managed to win the two crucial points from 19-19 in the first game.
