PV Sindhu enters semi-final of World Badminton Championship, assured of medal

PV Sindhu overcame a spirited performance from Tai Tzu Ting as she defeated the Chinese Taipei player 12-21,23-21, 21-19 to enter the semi-final of the World Badminton Championship in Basel and assure herself of a fifth medal in the tournament. Sindhu had lost in the 2017 edition of the tournament to Nozomi Okuhara and she will be determined to secure the gold medal this time. Sindhu, however, sailed into the quarterfinals with an easy 21-14 21-6 win over ninth seed Beiwan Zheng of the United States. Sindhu will now face second seed Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei in the quarterfinals.

Sindhu had lost to Nozomi Okuhara of Japan and Carolina Marin of Spain respectively in the summit clash of the last two editions of the World Championships in 2017 and 2018.

Asked if she is hoping to make it third time lucky, Sindhu replied: "Well, I have trained hard and I hope I can do well. I have to perform well but there is no pressure. I been working on my defence, physical fitness and also on-court skills. We do have all kinds of strokes but to improve we have to keep training. So I have to do it all the time to make myself perfect," Sindhu told PTI in interview.  "It is important to know which strokes to play at the right time, sometimes you can get tired and you can go blank but as a player you need to know which strokes to play in tough situations," she said.  

Japan's Akane Yamaguchi is the one player who has stopped Sindhu twice with an aggressive game plan in the last two tournaments of the year in Indonesia and Japan.

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HIGHLIGHTS

• PV Sindhu entered the semi-final of the World Badminton Championship.
• PV Sindhu had lost in the final in 2017 to Nozomi Okuhara.
• PV Sindhu had lost to Carolina Marin in 2018.