PV Sindhu lost her first Group B game of BWF World Tour Finals

Reigning World Champion PV Sindhu faced defeat, in her first outing at the prestigious BWF World Tour Finals in Bangkok, at the hands of World No.1 Tai Tzu-ying from Taiwan who won (19-21, 21-12, 21-17) in their first Group B game, on Wednesday.

Ranked 7 by BWF, Sindhu was leading after a (21-19) win in the first game but the World No.1 Taiwan shuttler bounced back in the 2nd game with a 21-12 thrashing and there was no looking back for the latter despite some resistance shown by Sindhu in the 3rd game.

Sindhu has to win at least 2 matches in the Round Robin stage to make it to the semifinals. She’s in Group B with Ratchanok Intanton (Thailand), Pornpawee Chochuwong (Thailand) besides Tai Tzu-ying.

Before today’s contest, Sindhu had faced Tai Tzu-ying in French Open back in October 2019 and the Malaysia Masters in January last year and lost to her Taiwanese counterpart both times.

PV Sindhu, besides Kidambi Srikanth, is the



only other India to have made their way to the biggest badminton competition. Her qualification to the delayed 2020 BWF World Tour Finals was aided by the forced absence of Japanese shuttler Nozomi Okuhara.

Another rule that helped Sindhu qualify for the tournament, prized at 1.5 million dollars, is that a maximum of 2 players could be incorporated into the singles draw and that led to Thai shuttler Busanan Ongbamrungphan not making it. Moreover, while Sindhu wouldn’t have qualified to the tournament based on her points in 2020, she accumulated enough points from her not so top-level performances in the recent few competitions that she participated in.

Sindhu was knocked out as early as the first round in first of the two Super 1000 events in Thailand, after her return for the first time since the COVID-19 outbreak, and she was also hit with a quarter-final exit last week in Bangkok. In a one-sided game, in the last-8 round, Sindhu surrendered to local star Ratchanok Intanon.