Sindhu in semis; erroneous Saina goes down tamely

TIL Desk Sports/ Top seed PV Sindhu remained in the hunt to defend her title by reaching the women’s singles semi-finals of the India Open but, Saina Nehwal was knocked out of the tournament in New Delhi.

Saina, who reached the final at Indonesia Masters last week, looked a little sluggish in her movement and committed too many unforced errors before going down 10-21, 13-21 to World No 11 American Beiwen Zhang. 2016 Olympic silver medallist, Sindhu, however, recovered from a mid-game slump to outwit Spain’s World No 36 Beatriz Corrales 21-12, 19-21, 21-11 in the other quarter-final.

The World Championship silver medallist will next face 2013 World champion and World No. 3 Thai Ratchanok Intanon.Sindhu dished out an attacking game to walk away with the opening game without much ado but Corrales came back in the second to lead 19-11 at one stage.

Sindhu, however, grabbed eight of the next nine points to make it 19-20 but a lucky net chord kept the Spaniard alive in the match in the end. In the decider, Sindhu once again showed her class as she zoomed to an 11-6 advantage at the lemon break.