P V Sindhu and Saina Nehwal are fighting demons from within. After all, injury and fitness issues prevented the two ladies from having a memorable 2022.
On Tuesday, their return to the $900,000 Yonex-Sunrise India Open provided further evidence of the duo lacking peak fitness needed to make progress in a field of this quality.
For the second successive year, Thailand’s Supanida Katethong proved the reason for Sindhu’s premature exit from the National Open. In 45 minutes, Supanida overpowered an erratic Sindhu 21-14, 22-20 after leading right through the first game.
In the second, Sindhu battled from a 12-17 deficit to lead 20-19. But thereafter, Supanida won two reviews in succession to leave Sindhu to deal with her earliest departure from the premier event.
Sindhu’s tentative and inconsistent defence combined with the inability to read Supanida’s tight net clearances spelt her doom. Clearly, Sindhu is far from peak fitness and a lot of work needs to be done on that front.
After Sindhu’s exit, it was almost a double blow for the vociferous crowd when Saina Nehwal trailed by four points late in the decider against Denmark’s Mia Blichfeldt.
Saina, despite looking a pale shadow of her best, managed to battle back from 14-17 to win seven of the last nine points to pull off a 21-17, 12-21, 21-19 triumph in 63 minutes. This was also Saina’s first win over the Dane in three matches.
Earlier, in a battle of two former World champions, Carolina Marin packed off Nozomi Okuhara in straight games. Before Okuhara, her compatriot and two-time former World champion Kento Momota opened the singles’ casualty list after running into Denmark’s Rasmus Gemke.
On a day when Lakshya Sen avenged the loss suffered to H. S. Prannoy in last week’s Malaysia Open in straight games in just 45 minutes, the doubles combinations of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty and P. Gayatri-Treesa Jolly advanced in contrasting styles, the top-seeded Japanese men’s pair of Takuro Hoki-Yug Kobayashi suffered a shock loss to Korea’s Kang Min Hyuk and Seo Seung Jae.
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