New Delhi:
Rio Olympics silver medallist PV Sindhu went down fighting to Zhang BW in the women's singles final of the India Open in New Delhi on Sunday.
Playing in front of her home fans, the tall and lanky Indian shuttler didn’t have the best start as her American opponent Zhang edged her in the opening game 21-18. However, the ace Indian shuttler made a remarkable comeback in the second game to win it 21-11 and lever the title clash.
The deciding game saw a slugfest between the two shuttlers with every point being fought hard. Zhang eventually held her nerves and clinched the match by a whisker to win her maiden 500 series title.
Zhang defeated Sindhu by 21-18, 11-21, 22-20 in an hour and 9 minutes to win the trophy. Sindhu has always played long matches against Zhang, all of them going to the decider, and the recent match was no different as the two of them battled till the last point.
Sindhu was trailing 5-8 in the first game. She leveled the game 8-8 and then went on to take a lead of 11-9. But after returning from the break, Zhang leveled the game 12-12 and then took a lead of 14-13. Sindhu, however, kept the match in tune with 15-15.
Zhang took a lead of 16-15 and won the first game 21-18. Sindu made a great comeback in the second game. At the beginning of the game the score was 2-2.
From here the Indian took a lead of 4-2 and kept the game alive till break.
After the break, Zhang tried to come back, but Sindhu won the second game by 21-11 to take the contest to the third game.
The third and decisive game saw stiff competition between the two. At one-time the American player was 9-4 ahead, but couldn’t take the advantage.
PV Sindhu bounced back in the game to make it to 9-10 and at one point the contest was neck to neck at 20-20. However, Zhang claimed two points to win the match.
It is notable that PV Sindhu had beaten Caroline Marin to win the India Open last year.
