Kuala Lumpur: India’s top shuttlers PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth went down in their respective women’s and men’s singles semifinals to draw curtains on the nation’s campaign at the USD 700,000 Malaysia Open badminton tournament here, Saturday.
First, Srikanth failed to match the overall superior game of former World No.2 Japanese Kento Momota and lost 13-21, 13-21.
Sindhu, too, met the same fate, against defending champion and World No.1 Tai Tzu Ying, who showed better technical acumen and physical ability. However, Sindhu fought well before losing 15-21, 21-19, 11-21.
It was Srikanth’s sixth defeat to Momota in nine meetings, while Sindhu has now lost nine times to Tai Tzu, this being her fifth successive reverse.
Tai Tzu moved swiftly on court, switched from attack to defence, played some creative strokes to eventually outwit Sindhu. The two played some high quality rallies, which were laced with drop shots and tight net strokes.
It was Tai who initially led 9-6 and 11-9 at the interval. Tai Tzu however, never let the lead slip and playing some brilliant strokes made it 20-15. An error by Sindhu saw her rival win the first game.
After the change of sides, Sindhu managed to zoom to a 5-0 lead. However, Tai Tzu drew parity at 9-9 before leading 11-10 at the break. Sindhu kept breathing down her opponent’s neck and led 18-16 with four straight points.
However, Tai Tzu again erased the deficit and moved to a minor 19-18 lead when Sindhu went long. But the Indian grabbed a game point when Tai Tzu went wide. A similar error and Sindhu had bounced back into the contest.
In the decider, a visibly exhausted Sindhu was no match for her rival. In quick time Tai Tzu made it 11-6 at the break before zooming ahead to 16-8. She simply toyed with Sindhu before winning the game and match with ease.
In the other match, Momota produced some excellent shots mixed with deception, to dominate the rallies. His smashes had power and precision and Srikanth had no answer to those.
In both the games, Momota grabbed early leads and maintained it. The supremacy of the Japanese can be gauged by the fact that Srikanth failed to even achieve a one-point lead in both the games. The only time he was close to Momota was in the first game when the scoreline read 3-all and 5-all. After that it was just the catching up game for the Indian.
