Sindhu fights her way into Indonesia Open semifinal

BALI: India’s two-time Olympic medal-winning shuttler P V Sindhu came back from a game down to beat South Korea’s Sim Yujin and enter the semifinals of the Indonesia Open Super 1000 tournament here on Friday.

The men’s doubles duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty later beat Malaysia’s Goh Sze Fei and Nur Izzuddin 21-19 21-19 in straight games to also make the semifinals of the tournament, making it a great day for the Indian contingent.

Third seed Sindhu, the reigning world champion, had to toil hard to get the better of Yujin 14-21 21-19 21-14 in the quarterfinal that lasted an hour and six minutes.

The Indian will play second seed Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand, who got the better of Japan’s Asuka Takahashi 21-17 21-12 in another women’s singles quarterfinal match, in her last four clash of the USD 850,000 event.

It was not smooth sailing from Sindhu against Yujin.

The Indian started confidently racing to a 7-1 lead before the Japanese pocketed six straight points to draw the first game level.

But once Yujin took a slender 11-10 lead at the break, she didn’t look back and won the game comfortably to grab the early momentum.

The Japanese continued in the same vein in the second game and matched Sindhu stroke for stroke till the first seven points before the Indian upped her game.