Sindhu, Srikanth out of reckoning
Bangkok, Jan. 28: Indian shuttlers P. V. Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth were virtually out of contention for the knockout stage after losing their respective second round matches in the BWF World Tour Finals here on Thursday.
A week ago Sindhu had suffered a demoralising defeat to Ratchanok Intanon and there was no change of fate for the World Champion this time too as she went down 18-21, 13-21 to the third seeded Thai.
“It wasn’t my day. Losing the first game made the difference. My timing was a bit off, so a bit disappointed,” Sindhu said.
Srikanth enjoyed a 3-0 head-to-head count against Wang Tzu Wei ahead of his match but it mattered little as the Taiwanese world no 12 claimed a come-frombehind 19-21, 21-9, 21-19 win over the Indian.
“I have to figure out a way to pull out these close matches. I was dominating him for most part of third game,” Srikanth said after losing yet another threegame contest.
“I think it’s about match practice, playing against top players continuously. We haven’t played for a year, and before that I wasn’t playing against top eight players continuously. I feel I’m almost there.”
With only the top two players from each group making it to the semifinals, the twin defeat almost sealed the fate of the Indian duo in the tournament.
Earlier, Srikanth and Wang fought tooth and nail right from the start, moving together 5-5 to 9-9 before Srikanth managed to grab a slender 11-10 lead with a smash.
Srikanth opened up a significant 15-11 lead with Wang sending the shuttle wide twice.
Srikanth continued to dominate the rallies with his angled returns to reach 17-12.
Wang, however, narrowed it down to 18-19 with Srikanth committing few errors but the Indian managed to grab two game points with a smash. He lost one before converting the next with Wang making a poor judgement at the backline.