Good evening and welcome to the Sportskeeda liveblog of the Dubai World Superseries Finals 2017. PV Sindhu is now India's only hope after Srikanth Kidambi's hopes ended earlier in the day with his second consecutive loss at this event.
Sindhu will be aiming for her second win in a row after starting her campaign with a thrilling three-game victory over He Bingjiao of China. While Sindhu is ranked third, the 15th ranked Japanese Sayaka Sato is the lowest ranked player at this event this year.
Sindhu leads their head-to-head meetings, 2-1 and their last meeting happened at the China Open first round this year. Even though it is the Indian, who should have the edge because of their head-to-head record, she has to remember that the Japanese always has close matches with her. Two out of their three meetings went the distance.
Sindhu did begin her World Superseries Finals challenge this year with a win but she had to work hard for that. She wasn't exactly at her best for the whole match but did manage to lift her game when it mattered the most.
Sindhu would hope to do the same thing today as well.