PV Sindhu suffered yet another setback against Carolina Marin, but the rising Indian women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand stunned world number two Baek Ha Na and Lee So Hee of South Korea to enter the quarterfinals at Singapore Open here on Thursday. Double Olympic medallist Sindhu blew away an 18-15 lead in the decider to go down to familiar rival Marin in a thrilling 21-13 11-21 20-22 women’s singles last-16 match. It was Sindhu’s sixth loss on the trot against her arch-rival, dating back to 2018.
The Commonwealth Games bronze medallist duo of Treesa and Gayatri kept the Indian flag flying high by eliminating Baek and Lee 21-9 14-21 21-15 in close to one-hour battle.
This was the world number 30 Indian duo’s maiden win from three meetings against the world number two Korean pair.
They will be up against another South Korean pair — sixth seed Kim So Yeong and Kong Hee Yong — in the quarterfinal of the BWF World Tour Super 750 event.
The Indian duo had lost to the Korean pair at the Hangzhou Asian Games pre-quarterfinals last year.
The Baek-Lee duo was error prone as Treesa and Gayatri held a commanding 18-9 lead before taking the opening game without much fuss.
But the Indians allowed the South Koreans to bounce back, committing unforced errors in the second game as the match went to the deciding third game.
The rival pairs exchanged some powerful smashes and were locked 8-all before the Indian duo took a slender two-point lead at the final mid game break.
They continued to play with aggression and reeled off six points on succession to make it 16-9 and seal a memorable win.
In the men’s singles, world No. 10 HS Prannoy, seeded eighth, lost 13-21, 21-14, 15-21 to Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto, ranked 11th in the world, in a 45-minute match.
This was the Indian’s fourth defeat against the Japanese in six matches.
In the women’s singles, Sindhu, fresh from her runner-up finish at the Malaysia Masters last week, took the opening game against her Rio Olympics final nemesis, but the Spaniard bounced back to win in a one-hour, eight-minute battle.
Having saved one match point, Sindhu committed a sloppy misjudgement of the shuttle on the backline to prolong her wait to five years and 11 months.
Sindhu had last beaten Marin in the quarterfinals of the Malasyia Open on June 29, 2018. Since then, the Indian has endured six losses on the trot.
Facing each other for the first time in seven months after their heated Denmark Open semi-final clash, the double Olympic medalist Indian dominated the opening game against an error-prone Marin.
With a powerful body smash, Sindhu took a massive 11-6 lead and maintained her authority to extend it to 15-8.
The third-seeded Marin tried to come back but Sindhu held her ways and sealed it comfortably.
But the Spaniard World No. 3 bounced back strongly in a lopsided second game, where she won six points on the trot and cruised to a 17-7 lead to force a decider.
Maintaining her lead, Sindhu nosed 11-9 ahead in the final mid-game interval as she unleashed a powerful body smash to make it 14-10.
Sindhu exhibited a brilliant drop shot as she went two points shy of an elusive win against Marin making it 19-17.
But the Indian lost her composure as she found the net, allowing Marin to bounce back and get a match point at 19-20.
Marin, however, shot it wide as the game hung in balance at 20-all before the Spaniard got another match point with her fiery smash.
But this time, Marin had the last laugh with Sindhu erring on her judgment on back court. This was Marin’s 12th career win from 17 matches against the Indian.
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