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The BWF World Tour Finals are known to showcase the highest quality badminton, as only the top ranked players in the world are eligible to compete in it. Today, Indian fans were given a double delight as both the qualifiers from the country won their respective encounters against tough opponents.
The match that everyone was waiting for was PV Sindhu vs Tai Tzu Ying. This was just a day after Sindhu showed amazing grit and confidence in her straight games victory over World No. 2 Akane Yamaguchi.
Despite the fact that Sindhu had lost her last six encounters against Tai, she was still expected to make this match competitive in light of the amazing form she showed yesterday. And Sindhu managed to deliver what was expected from her as she defeated Tai 14-21, 21-16, 21-18 in a match lasting an hour and one minute.
In the first game, Tai's sharp attack and wizard-like deception didn't let Sindhu play her game as the Indian lost it 14-21. But from the second game onwards, Sindhu started producing some fierce attacking play which helped her lead 11-4 at the mid-game interval.
After the interval, Tai was back to her best as she reduced the gap to 8-11. But Sindhu's amazing retrieval skills resulted in a lot of errors creeping out of Tai's racquet, which ultimately helped the Indian win the game 21-16.
The third game started with Tai taking a 3-0 lead. She repeatedly targeted Sindhu's weak backhand as she managed to lead 11-8 at the mid-game interval.
But after being 11-13 down, Sindhu took 7 straight points to lead 18-13. The fear of losing was clearly visible in Tai's play, as she started looking tentative.
16-20 down, Tai managed to save two match points. But in the end, it was Sindhu's superb defense that resulted in an error from the Taiwanese, giving her the match.
With this win, Sindhu has confirmed her place in the semifinals. Tomorrow she will play against another tricky player, Zhang Beiwen of USA.
In men's singles, Sameer Verma shook off his poor performance against Kento Momota yesterday and played some of the best badminton of his career as he defeated Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia 21-16, 21-7 in a match lasting just 39 minutes.
Verma still has a chance to qualify for the semifinals, but he will need to beat Kantaphon Wangcharoen of Thailand tomorrow.
