PV Sindhu, Sameer Verma Stumble in Thailand; Satwiksairaj-Ashwini Advance
Bangkok: World champion P V Sindhu dished out a below-par performance
to lose her quarter-final match, while Sameer Verma's gallant fight ended in
agony in the Toyota Thailand Open Super 1000 tournament in Bangkok on Friday.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and AshwiniPonappa, however, entered the mixed doubles semi-final with a stunning win over World No. 6 pair of Peng Soon Chan and Liu Ying Goh of Malaysia in a nail-biting quarter-final duel.
Olympic silver medallist Sindhu looked a pale shadow of the player who had won the world championship gold in 2019 as she was all at sea against home favouriteRatchanokInthanon, who rode on her precision and quality of strokes to outclass the Indian 21-13, 21-9 in a lop-sided contest.
In the men's singles, Sameer's giant-killing run also ended after he squandered a match point to go down 13-21, 21-19, 20-22 to World No. 3 Anders Antonsen of Denmark in a quarter-final contest.
The only bright spot on the day for India was the duo of Satwik and Ashwini, who shocked the fifth seeded Malaysian pair 18-21, 24-22, 22-20 after toiling hard for one hour and 15 minutes.
The World No. 22 Indian pair will be up against top seeds DechapolPuavaranukroh and SapsireeTaerattanachai of Thailand.
Ratchanok, who had lost to Sindhu in their last three meetings, came out with a positive intent and eked out a three-point lead early on even as Sindhu failed to control the length. The Thai soon grabbed a four-point advantage at the first-game interval.
Sindhu looked to force the pace after the break and caught up at 13-13. However, it was a one-way traffic after that as Ratchanok blew the Indian away with eight straight points to pocket the opening game without much ado.
The change of sides didn't bring any change of fortunes for Sindhu as she trailed 1-7 at one stage before going into the break seven points behind her rival.
After the breather, Ratchanok eased to 19-7 before grabbing a massive 12 match points. The Thai missed a point due to a misjudgement at the backline before shutting the match with another precise return. Agencies
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