Asia Championships Badminton

PV Sindhu lost to Akane Yamaguchi 21-13, 19-21, 16-21 in the women's singles semi-final at the Badminton Asia Championships.

World No. 7 Sindhu came into the match trailing 7-9 in head-to-head encounters but it was her third straight win over her Chinese rival. The Japnese shuttler found her rhythm and never let Sindhu regroup. Dinesh Khanna is the only Indian to win gold at the Asian Championships in 1965.

Star Indian shuttler PV Sindhu on Saturday settled for the bronze medal after suffering a comeback defeat against reigning world champion Akane Yamaguchi in ...

But the momentum of the world no. With Sindhu`s defeat, India`s challenge at the Badminton Asia Championships has come to an end. This is Sindhu`s second bronze medal at the continental event.

This is Sindhu's second medal at the Badminton Asia Championships - she had won the bronze medal in the 2014 Gimcheon edition as well.

The Indian trailed all throughout the decider and Yamaguchi sped away to claim five match points, which she duly converted. However, the turning point came in the second game when she was handed a point penalty for taking too much time between points and that led to an argument with the referee. Yamaguchi seized control of the third game and didn't offer Sindhu, seeded fourth, any room to regroup.

Double Olympic medallist P V Sindhu ended her Badminton Asia Championships campaign with a bronze medal after going down fighting to Japan's Akane Yamaguchi ...

In the end, Yamaguchi had five match points, which she duly converted. The Japnese shuttler found her rhythm and never let Sindhu regroup. The head-to-head between Sindhu and Yamaguchi is now 13-9 in the Indian’s favour.

PV Sindhu vs Akane Yamaguchi, Badminton Asia Championships 2022 SemiFinal: Check out the Results, Scores and other information of the last-4 clash.

Sindhu had only herslef to blame after winning the first game. In the second round, however, Sindhu had it a little easy, getting past Singapore's Jaslyn Hooi in straight games (21-16, 21-16). Top-seeded Yamaguchi had reached the semifinals following a close encounter against sixth-seeded Pornpawee Chochuwong of Thailand. The Japanese shuttler came from a game down to beat the Thai 9-21, 21-15, 21-17 in the quarterfinals.

Indian star was penalised by referee for taking too long to serve; Sindhu says Yamaguchi also took time and calls it 'unfair' .

But such was her rage at the unfairness of her penalty, that the towering Sindhu allowed a long shadow to fall on her game to lose a semifinal. Sindhu is a fighter and in the biggest revamps of her games for the past 6 years, stomps around the net with conviction. What did happen though was a decider where Yamaguchi took an early lead from the not-so-helpful side – a clear giveaway that Sindhu was still stewing over the episode. It’s here that the umpire asked her to return the shuttle and gave a point to Yamaguchi. It bordered on the harsh, though wasn’t out of the rulebook, with prior warnings. But the concentration had been tampered with and Sindhu dragged out the bad patch, by stabbing the shuttle into the net and losing the deft touch, to concede the lead at 15-16 with net errors. “I think that was one of the reasons I lost I felt. Sindhu took it to 14-11 but had received prior warnings for delaying her serve by the umpire, but this one cost her a point. It is the best mind-spaces to be in against the World No.2 who’s won the World Championship and All England: create as big a buffer in the score as possible to parry Yamaguchi off. It was at the next point that the camel’s back caught a synaptic twitch. The semifinal was lost in the head at the halfway stage, and the trigger was clearcut. Feeling hard done by legitimately owing to the point penalty (and narrowing of the gap), Sindhu visibly imploded from thereon. A little backgrounder to the day’s aggravation: Sindhu won the toss, chose a favourable drift side of the court and completely dominated Yamaguchi in the opener as the Japanese struggled with her control on the shuttle lengths and a range that had gone awry.