New Delhi: Indian shuttler PV Sindhu produced one of her greatest comeback victories to book a quarter-final spot in the ongoing 2017 World Badminton Championships on Thursday in Glasgow.
Sindhu, 22, started the match on a confident note, leading her rival 4-2 in their women's singles third round match. But the Rio Olympics silver medallist soon lost her form, and was seen fighting to save the first game. Then came a desperate rear-guard action, but it was too late for the Indian. She lost the opener 19-21.
The same script followed in the second game too, but with a different ending. Just like in the first game, Sindhu led Ngan Yi 4-2 in the beginning, then was seen trialing 13-15. But Sindhu showed her experience to force a 20-20, then wrapped up the game 23-21, thus forcing a deciding third game.
In the third game, having learnt from her previous mistakes, Sindhu kept the pressure on the Hong Kong girl. And was leading 5-1, then it soon became 8-4. It was converted to a 11-4 lead.
But Ngan Yi fought back by closing the gap to one single point, 14-15. Then, it was the turn of the higher rank Indian to finish off the contest with a flurry of points, at 21-17.
It was Sindhu's fourth win over Ngan Yi in four meetings.
Sindhu will play fifth seeded Sun Yu in the quarter-final. The Chinese girl too survived a three-game thriller to beat Spaniard Beatriz Corrales, 21-11,19-21, 23-21.
They have met seven times, with the Chinese girl leading 4-3 in the head-to-head count. Yu defeated Sindhu in their last meeting in straight games, 21-15, 21-17 at Dubai World Superseries Finals last December.
Earlier in the day, Kidambi Srikanth reached men's singles quarter-final after defeating Anders Antonsen of Denmark in straight games, 21-14 21-18.
He will now play the winner of top seeded Son Wan Ho of South Korea and 11th seeded Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk of Thailand in the quarters.
However, mixed doubles pair of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N. Sikki Reddy lost to seventh seeded Indonesian pair of Debby Susanto and Praveen Jordan in three epic games, 20-22 21-18 21-18.
