India's hopes of a first-ever Olympic gold in badminton ended in despair as reigning world champion P.V. Sindhu went down fighting to Chinese Taipei's Tai Tzu Ying in the semifinal of the women's singles badminton at the Tokyo Olympics today.
The second-seeded shuttler proved to be too strong for Sindhu, as the former prevailed 21-18, 21-12 in highly-anticipated clash. Sindhu put up a fierce fight in the first set, but was blown away in the second.
The numbers were always in favour of the Chinese Taipei shuttler, as of the 18 matches that these two had played before today's clash, Tai Tzu-Ying led 13-5 against Sindhu. She was as deft with her cross-court drops as she was with her smashes down the line.
Sindhu started strongly, racing to a 5-2 lead in the first set. Tai Tzu-Ying clawed back into the game with a few backhand smashes and deft play at the net, but Sindhu went into the mid-set interval leading 11-8. After the break, it was a neck-and-neck fight, but Tai Tzu-Ying reeled off the last three points to take the first set.
It seemed to have upset Sindhu's momentum, as she gave away four consecutive points to Tai Tzu-Ying to fall behind 4-7 in the second set. She never recovered from the deficit as the Chinese Taipei player opened up a huge gap, winning the decisive set 21-12.
In the other semifinal, China's Chen Yu Fei stormed into the Olympics final, beating He Bingjiao 21-16, 13-21, 21-12.
The 26-year-old Indian, who won the silver in the 2016 Rio Olympics, had beaten fourth-seeded Akane Yamaguchi 21-13, 22-20 in the quarterfinal yesterday.
She was the lone Indian in fray in badminton after men's singles player B Sai Praneeth and the men's doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy failed to qualify for the knockout stage.