Sindhu beats Yamaguchi in Superseries Finals opener

Indian star shuttler P.V. Sindhu opened her BWF Superseries Finals campaign with a fighting win against Akane Yamaguchi of Japan here on Wednesday.

In the opening match of the Group B, the 2016 Rio Olympic Games silver medallist Sindhu lost the first game 12-21, but came back strongly to bag the next two games 21-8, 21-15. With this win, double World Championship bronze medallist Sindhu has taken a 3-1 lead in the head-to-head against the 19-year-old two-time former junior world champion Yamaguchi.

On Thursday, world No.10 Sindhu will come across sixth-ranked Chinese Sun Yu, who produced a stunning result against reigning Olympic champion Carolina Marin with a 21-18, 24-22 triumph in 58 minutes. In the match at the Hamdan Sports Complex, Sindhu looked a bit rusty and took time to get into rhythm. Yamaguchi ran away to a 7-3 lead quickly but Sindhu halved the difference to 5-7. But Yamaguchi sparkled by notching six straight points that gave her a 13-5 lead. The gap was just too big and even though Sindhu fought hard to make it 11-14 at a point of time, the Japanese managed to win easily 21-12.

In the second game, Sindhu showed repertoire of strokes to bag 16 points on the trot that stood her at 20-7 before winning the game 21-8. A determined Sindhu continued her momentum in the third game and jumped to an 8-4 lead which became 11-7 at the mid-game break.

Afterwards, Sindhu upped her game, pressurising Yamaguchi to make costly errors. And the younger rival did feel the pressure, conceding points one after another.