All England Badminton Championships 2020: PV Sindhu crash out in the quarterfinals

The Indian challenge ended as World Championship PV Sindhu crashed out in the quarterfinals to Nozomi Okuhara the All England Badminton Championships played at Arena, Birmingham on Friday.

It was a dominating start by Sindhu who looked in complete control with smashes and drop shots not allowing Okuhara to play her natural game. At the interval, the Indian had a commanding 11-6 lead. After the interval, Sindhu made the life tough for the Japanese with smashes and created pressure to win the first set easily at 21-12.

In the second game, Okuhara made a strong comeback into the game playing long rallies and creating panic among Sindhu. Both players took 2 points each before the Japanese proved her worth and made life tough for the Indian. Sindhu was forced to commit mistakes. At the interval, Okuhara had an 11-7 lead. After the interval, the Japanese played with aggression and did not allow the Japanese to come back into the game. It was a dominating display by Japanese who won 2^nd set easily at 21-15 to force the match into a decider.

The third game also saw Okuhara show her domination over the Indian and created pressure with her smashes. The Japanese were strong for the Indian taking an 11-5 lead at the interval. After the interval, Okuhara was able to put enough pressure on Sindhu and played precise drop shots. Sindhu committed a lot of unforced and lost the third set easily at 13-21 to be knocked out of the tournament.

Sindhu was only Indian to reach the quarterfinals stage. Kidambi Srikanth, Saina Nehwal, Sai Praneeth, Parupalli Kashyap lost in the first round itself. The World Championship defeated Zhang Biewen of USA in the first round and then got better of Sung Ji Hyun of South Korea in two straight sets.

The World Championship struggled to show her class after a dominating first game. Okuhara looked in complete control in the next two games to move into the semi-finals with Chen Yufei of China.