Competition: Dubai World Superseries Finals
Date: Saturday, 17 December 2016
Time: Around 6.30-7 PM IST
Venue: Hamdan Sports Complex, Dubai
TV Coverage: Star Sports 4, Star Sports HD4 (In India)
Live Streaming: Star Sports Hotstar
Preview
(3/4) Sung Ji Hyun (WR #5) vs (5/8) PV Sindhu (WR #10)
Head-to-head record: Sindhu leads 6-3
After a sensational 21-17, 21-13 win over the Olympic champion Carolina Marin that avenged her Rio defeat, India’s PV Sindhu has made it to the semi-finals in her Dubai World Superseries Finals debut. The knock-out stages start from today and the 21-year-old cannot afford to make any mistake if she wants to progress into Sunday’s summit clash.
Her semi-final opponent is a veteran – the 5th ranked Sung Ji Hyun of Korea, who has been in sizzling form at this season-ender and has won all her three matches in straight games. Even against the top seed and Hong Kong Open champion Tai Tzu Ying, Sung was devastating at the crucial moments and emerged a 21-15, 21-17 winner on Friday.
There is no doubt that she has arrived into the semi-finals riding high on confidence.
To tackle her, Sindhu needed a big boost and she got exactly that in her huge upset win over Marin yesterday. The Indian had made a memorable comeback against Akane Yamaguchi in her opening group match but failed to replicate that same effort against the group B leader Sun Yu in her next match.
However, the Pullela Gopichand protégé managed to push that setback out of her mind swiftly and stormed back into title contention with an excellent display of attacking badminton against Marin. It attests her recently acquired maturity that she has shown in ample amounts during her unforgettable Asian swing where she triumphed at the China Open and reached the Hong Kong Open final.
In one of those matches during the Asian swing, she faced none other than her today’s opponent Sung Ji Hyun.
It was the semi-finals of the China Open where the two last met and the Indian saved as many as three match points to stun the Korean in three games.
Sindhu has to be prepared for long rallies which is how Sung had tired her out in the first game of that particular match where the Indian had no chance. She has to disrupt Sung’s rhythm with a clever mix of variety at the net and make her come forward, keeping her own errors in check. The strategy worked impeccably for Sindhu who could come back from the brink then and she would have to repeat that in today’s encounter as well.
