Kuala Lumpur
\nPV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth went down fighting in their respective semifinals to draw the curtains on India\u2019s campaign at the $700,000 Malaysia Open.<\/p>\n
First, Srikanth failed to match the overall superior game of former world No. 2 Japanese Kento Momota. Sindhu met the same fate against defending champion and world No. 1 Tai Tzu Ying, who showed better technical acumen and physical ability.<\/p>\n
Srikanth lost 13-21 13-21 to world No. 11 Momota, who registered his 21st consecutive win, while Sindhu’s fight ended with a 15-21 21-19 11-21 loss to Chinese Taipei\u2019s Tai in a 55-minute match.<\/p>\n
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 defeat.<\/p>\n
Sindhu and Tai moved together initially before Tai opened up a 9-6 lead. Sindhu reduced the deficit but Tai led 11-9 when she punched one precisely at the backline. Tai played quick drops, smashes and also tried out some ambitious strokes to move to game point at 20-15. Another error from Sindhu and the opening game was over.<\/p>\n
After the change of sides, Tai drew parity at 9-9 before leading 11-10 at the break. Sindhu then led 18-16 with four straight points. However, Tai erased the deficit and moved to a minor 19-18 lead when Sindhu went long. The Indian grabbed a game point when Tai went wide. Tai repeated the error and Sindhu had bounced back into the contest.<\/p>\n
In the decider, the duo split the first eight points. But the Chinese Taipei shuttler marched ahead to 10-6, playing some perfectly-timed shots at the backline to race to a 16-8 advantage. Two weak returns from Sindhu ensured Tai reached her fourth final at the Malaysia Open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kuala Lumpur PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth went down fighting in their respective semifinals to draw the curtains on India\u2019s campaign at the $700,000 Malaysia Open. First, Srikanth failed to match the overall superior game of former world No. 2 Japanese Kento Momota. Sindhu met the same fate against defending champion and world No. 1 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35838,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35837"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35839,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35837\/revisions\/35839"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}