Competition: Dubai World Superseries Finals
Date: Thursday, 15 December 2016
Time: Around 6-6.30pm IST
Venue: Hamdan Sports Complex, Dubai
TV Coverage: Star Sports 4, Star Sports HD4 (In India)
Live Streaming: Star Sports Hotstar
Preview
(3/4) Sun Yu (WR #6) vs (5/8) PV Sindhu (WR #10)
Head-to-head record: They are tied at 3-3
After kicking off their World Superseries Finals 2016 challenge on a grand note, the top two players of Group B get to meet each other in a mouthwatering clash. Needless to say, this match will be exciting as much as it will be crucial in deciding who gets to proceed from this group into the semi-finals.
Sun Yu is the higher-ranked player here at No. 6. She may not have had any big breakthrough like PV Sindhu has had in 2016 but she has been pretty consistent throughout the season. She has reached as many as six finals with four of them being at the Superseries level.
Her consistency was rewarded when she qualified for the Superseries Finals in the third place. Sun Yu, touted as one of the brightest talents of the next generation of Chinese players, lived up to the expectations when she prevailed over the Olympic champion Carolina Marin in a stunning upset in her opening match at Dubai.
Even when things got tight towards the end against Marin, she held her nerves to complete the 21-18, 24-22 win in straight games.
Her confidence will undoubtedly be sky-high when she takes on the Indian in her next match on Thursday.
The 10th ranked Sindhu too began her Dubai campaign with a win. Having been annihilated in the first game against the eighth-ranked Akane Yamaguchi, the Rio Olympic silver medallist staged an incredible comeback to dash all hopes of the Japanese teen for a 12-21, 21-8, 21-15 win.
The poise, the body language, the footwork, the attacking intent she showed in the last two games were reminiscent of her performances during the Asian swing where she won the China Open and reached the Hong Kong Open final.
And one of the matches during that two-week period in November had Sindhu and Sun Yu clashing against each other. It was the China Open final in which Sindhu reigned supreme in three games.
The Pullela Gopichand protégé was thoroughly dominant in the opening game there before the Chinese started incorporating more variety into her game and displayed excellent defence to stretch the match. The 21-year-old needs a lot of patience and calmness – something she has been showing in ample amounts for the past few weeks to not let the Chinese feel comfortable in this contest.
If she can emulate the kind of intelligent tactical play she exhibited in the second game against Yamaguchi on Wednesday, a win should not be out of her reach against Sun.
