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Two-time World Championships bronze medallist PV Sindhu was playing competitively after two months at the 2017 World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland on Tuesday. Her last match on the BWF circuit was a heartbreaker where the 22-year-old squandered a match point to lose to the top seed and World No. 1 Tai Tzu Ying in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open.
But the lanky Hyderabadi did not wallow in sadness after that defeat or show any kind of rust from being away from the Tour.
Nor could her first round opponent at the championships -- the 42nd ranked Kim Hyo Min -- do anything to deflate her confidence. The Korean did win their last showdown at the Australian Open in 2016 which was the last tournament for the Indian before she won a historic silver medal at the Rio Olympics.
Since then the Pullela Gopichand protégé has been a different player altogether.
And on Tuesday, the World No. 5 gave ample glimpses of why she has found so much success in the past one year as she notched up a 21-16, 21-14 first round win in 49 minutes.
Early lead helped Sindhu
She smartly dealt with her opponent of calibre who, time and again, engaged the Indian in long rallies to halt her momentum. But the unfazed Sindhu was prepared to tackle everything.
The Korean shuttler got her first point of the match after the Indian had already built a staggering 8-0 lead. Kim closed the gap steadily to 5-10 and even saved a game point to trail by just four points at 16-20 in the first game.
In the second game, she once more rebounded to have just a two-point deficit at 8-10. Even though she kept pegging back Sindhu and restricted her from playing her natural attacking shots, the India Open Superseries champion slammed the match in straight games.
Acknowledging the gruelling rallies, the Rio Olympic silver medallist pointed out in her post-match interaction video that her early lead was what helped her get through.
“There were long rallies but then I maintained the lead from the start. So, even though she covered, I maintained the same way. Overall it went on well. So, pretty happy. “
A beaming Sindhu further talked about her performance in the video released by Badminton Scotland on their Twitter handle.
“I think it was very important for me…the result and the performance, of course. If you perform well, automatically you will get the results.
Talking about the strokes, I was able to play my strokes.”
Sindhu next takes on the winner of the second round contest between the 13th seed Cheung Ngan Yi and Evgeniya Kosetskaya for a place in the quarter-finals.
