Rio de Janeiro, August 17: Indian shuttler P.V. Sindhu caused a huge upset, stunning World No.2 Wang Yihan of China in straight games to enter the semi-finals of the women’s singles category at the ongoing Rio Olympics.
Faced with a much higher rated opponent, the 21-year-old from Hyderabad scripted a 22-20, 21-19 victory in 54 minutes over the former World No.1 at the Riocentro Pavilion 4 here on Tuesday.
Sindhu will face World no.6 Nozomi Okuhara of Japan in the last-four stage. Okuhara defeated compatriot Akane Yamaguchi 11-21, 21-17, 21-10 in a hard-fought all-Japan quarter-final clash which dragged on for one hour and eight minutes.
Talking after Tuesday’s quarter-final, Sindhu asserted that she is determined to produce a similar effort in the semi-finals and create history by becoming the first Indian shuttler -- male or female -- to enter the Olympic final.
“Yes, this is one of the most satisfying wins that I have played. I have played Wang Yihan several times and sometimes she plays a different game. This one was one of the best, and I hope it will happen in the next game,” she said.
“In the first game, she shot very well. My win was not really luck, since she played brilliantly. I was down in that game, but then I came back. Even though she was leading, I knew the game could change any moment. After that the score was going equal and it was not easy to get a point for either of us,” she added.
In the meanwhile, India’s Kidambi Srikanth went down fighting to two-time defending champion Lin Dan of China in the quarter-finals of the men’s singles event of badminton competitions at the Olympic Games here on Wednesday.
Five-time world champion Dan edged World No.11 Srikanth 21-6, 11-21, 21-18.
With this win, the 32-year-old Chinese legend took a 3-1 head-to-head lead against the 23-year-old Indian shuttler.
In the semi-finals, Dan will face his long-time rival and Malaysian veteran Lee Chong Wei, who crushed Chinese Taipei’s Tou Tien Chen in a dominating 21-9, 21-15 victory.
However, Dan will not be happy with the way he was stretched against Srikanth, who was playing in his maiden Olympics.
In the first game, the pressure of the occasion and his towering opponent mounted over Srikanth as the Chinese surged to an early 5-1 lead and then increased it to 10 points to make it 11-1 in just seven minutes.
Srikanth, however, won two points after that but Dan just got stronger with each point and maintained his Lead.
The Guntur lad, who made a lot of errors with his net play could not found his feet on court and hence surrendered the first game 6-21.
The second game saw a little turnaround of the events as Srikanth raced away a three-point lead at the start and then blazed into a quick 6-3 lead.
Slowly, the second game witnessed errors creeping into Dan’s play while Srikanth showed his potential against one of the best shuttlers in the world circuit to make it 11-5. Dan seemed to be struggling in the defence of cross-court smashes from Srikanth.
