Guangzhou: Continuing her sizzling form, Indian shuttler PV Sindhu progressed to the summit clash of the World Tour Finals for the second successive time, but it was curtains for debutante Sameer Verma in the men’s singles event here Saturday.
The 23-year-old Sindhu, who finished runner-up in the last edition, staved off a strong challenge from the fighting Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand, 2013 World Champion, to emerge 21-16, 25-23 winner in a tense semifinal that clocked 54 minutes.
Sameer, however, had to swallow a bitter pill after squandering a match point advantage in the second game to go down 21-12, 20-22, 17-21 to All England Champion and World Championship silver medallist Shi Yuqi of China in the men’s singles semifinals.
Sindhu will now fight for the title against Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara, to whom she had lost an epic World Championship final, last year.
World No.6 Sindhu has lost a lot of major finals, including the Rio Olympics, two World Championships in 2017 and 2018 and the Jakarta Asian Games, to settle for silvers in the last two years.
Sindhu and Intanon started on an equal note, splitting the initial 14 points. Sindhu tried to attack the long serves of Intanon to lead 11-9 before entering the break. After the break, the Thai made some amends to some extent before Sindhu grabbed four game points to seal the opening set.
After the change of sides, Sindhu rushed away with the first four points, but the deceptive Intanon drew parity at 7-7. Later, a couple of unforced errors from Sindhu allowed the Thai to go 11-10 up at the break.
Sindhu reeled off four points to again go into the lead, but Intanon came back strongly to lead 16-15. However, the Indian fought back to make it 23-23. A couple of unforced errors from Intanon allowed Sindhu to seal the deal.
