Dubai: Ace Indian shuttler PV Sindhu continued her sweet run disposing world no. 2 Akane Yamaguchi 21-9, 21-13 to top group A, but Kidambi Srikanth’s disappointing run came to an end with another defeat at the USD $1 million Dubai Super Series Finals on Friday. The Denmark Open champion who was already knocked out after two back-to-back defeats suffered another loss to Chinese Shi Yuqi 17-21, 21-19, 14-21 at the Sheikh Hamdan Indoor Stadium.
The Rio Olympics silver medalist assured of semi-final berth, took just 36 minutes to get rid of the Japanese Yamaguchi and will now face Chen Yufei of China who beat Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon 21-18, 13-21, 21-18 in another Group B match, to reach the semi-finals.
Sindhu who already had a 4-2 lead over the Japanese in head-to-head battle complety dominated the proceedings, forcing Yamaguchi into several unforced errors throughout the match.
The 22-year-old was already 5-0 ahead when Yamaguchi earned her first point, that however remained her sole point as Sindhu ran riot making it 11-1 at the break. By the time, the Japanese gained some momentum to make a comeback Sindhu was leading at 15-4 and faced no difficulties to win the first set 21-9.
Yamaguchi however looked a completely diffrerent player in the second game, matching Sindhu step on step and shot-on-shot. The game seemed locked for another intense battle between the two, standing at 7-6. But a couple unforced errors gave Sindhu the chance to make it 8-6. The serves kept on changing at the end of each point as both parties rallied hard at the court.
But Yamaguchi’s regular faltering at the net soon gave the Indian a big lead of 5 points standing at 13-8, the increased in number as the match progressed handing Sindhu her third straight sets win in as many matches in the competition.
Knocked out of the Super Series Finals after losing two straight games, Srikanth failed to inspire even in the final group match against Shi Yuqi despite taking the match to the decider. He lost the first set but bounced in the second, still was no match for the All England Open finalist, who eventually ran out a comfortable winner and progress to the semis with a 3-0 clean-sheets in the group stages.