Bali: Ace Indian shuttler PV Sindhu crashed out of Indonesia Masters Super 750 badminton tournament after suffering a loss in the women’s singles semi-final at the hand of familiar foe Akane Yamaguchi of Japan.
Double Olympic medallist Sindhu went down to the Japanese by 13-21, 9-21 in the match that lasted 32 minutes.
Akane ranked third in the world, was too quick for Sindhu since the start and took the first game by 21-13 with ease in just 17 minutes.
In the second game, Sindhu was demonstrating her patience but Akane kept her energy high and maintained her rhythm to hold Sindhu back in the game.
By the time of mid-game interval, Sindhu was trailing 5-11. The Japanese managed Sindhu well with her engineered shots and maintained her grip over the game.
The-27-year-old Indian was nibbling away the deficit on the board with a couple of magical shots but that wasn’t enough for the reigning world champion to save the match.
Later, in the men’s singles semi-final, Kidambi Srikanth will be up against the world no. 3 Anders Antonsen of Denmark.
Srikanth holds a 1-2 head to head record against the Danish player and the last time they faced each other was in the World Tour finals group stage, where Srikanth suffered a loss by 15-21, 21-16, 21-18.
