Japan Open badminton: Error-prone PV Sindhu knocked out in Round 1 again; Lakshya Sen, Satwik-Chirag make winning starts

Indian Express

2 days ago

Late in her first-round match against Korea's Sim Yu Jin at the Japan Open Super 750 on Wednesday, PV Sindhu first hit a backhand smash and then a forehand tap so wide that it missed – forget the singles lines – the outer lines drawn on the green badminton court. It wasn't near misses. Commentator Gillian Clark wondered: 'How many unforced errors do you think Sindhu has made in this match?' Co-commentator Steen Pedersen responded: 'Too many, way too many.'
Last month, Aryna Sabalenka rued the number of unforced errors she made in the Roland Garros final against Coco Gauff; she knew the exact number (70) because those stats are readily available for a tennis match. Over the last fortnight at Wimbledon, the official website had an AI-powered match chat option, where you could ask for a wide variety of statistics from a match. Badminton, unfortunately, has never been good at this as only the most basic stats are available for a match – not even the winners and unforced errors count. But if they were, they wouldn't make good reading for Sindhu.
Her 21-15, 21-14 defeat against world No.14 Sim would and should frustrate Sindhu, not just for the result, because she simply made far too many mistakes on her own racket against an opponent she had never lost to in three previous encounters.
Sindhu has insisted this year that she is feeling fully fit, focussing on training hard and staying injury free, and believing that she still has the fire and drive to go deep in tournaments. But the evidence for that on court hasn't been seen apart from a few flashes of the old grit that took her to the rightly-deserved legendary status.
Against Sim too, it was a case of not being able to consistently play percentage shots to stay alive in the rallies – because when she did extend the points long enough, Sim, too, was making errors. Like when Sindhu closed the gap from 3-9 in Game 1, like when she drew level at 11-11 from 1-5 down in Game 2.
One of the more frustrating aspects of Sindhu's defeats this year has been a tendency to misjudge the length of shuttles both in attack and defence, and she again struggled with that in this match. Twice she let the shuttles drop in the backend of the opening game when she was putting Sim under pressure, twice she challenged and twice she lost her reviews. And the first three points she has lost in Game 2 were again because of letting the shuttle drop within the lines on the backcourt. Except maybe the third one, where Sim had Sindhu scrambling back with a perfect lift, the Indian could have easily returned the other two and kept the rally going. Ultimately, from 11-11, Sindhu's radar started to misfire again and she – perhaps fittingly – conceded the match with a series of unforced errors.
Earlier in the day, Lakshya Sen and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty made winning starts to their campaigns at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium.
Up against world No.24 Chinese left-hander Wang Zheng Xing, Lakshya appeared dialled in from the word go. The Indian made a super fast start, going up 11-2. His movement to the frontcourt was sharp, he wasn't hesitant to find the angles, and take pace off the shuttle with his half smashes – usually a tell-tale sign that he is operating in a good zone, as he took the opener 21-11. Wang started to work his way back into the match, and his finish to the first game gave him some momentum at the start of the second, although Lakshya kept an early lead. Wang kept narrowing the gap down but Lakshya's lead never really looked under threat and the Indian finished the match off with a searing down-the-line smash and a fist pump. He now has a reunion with his Class of 2019 batchmate Kodai Naraoka next, where the Indian trails 2-4 in the Head-to-Head, having lost two of his last three matches since 2022.
In men's doubles, Satwik-Chirag faced a tricky opening-round test against Kang Min Hyuk (half of the World Championship-winning Kang-Seo Seung Jae pairing) and Ki Dong Ju.
Kang's power game from the backcourt, and the Koreans' generally sharper movement, caused early troubles for the Indians, who trailed 8-11 at the mid-game point. But Satwik-Chirag made a fast start post-interval, quickly drawing level at 11-11 and had their first lead of the match at 14-13. As the momentum started to shift, the Indians started dictating the tempo and not being reactive to what the Koreans were doing. In a game where the rallies barely extended beyond the first four or five shots, Satwik-Chirag won a crucial extended exchange at 18-17 to arrest a mini revival by Kang and Ki and eventually took the lead 21-18.
One of the areas that has troubled the Indians in the recent past is the service return situations, but the Koreans barely troubled Satwik-Chirag on their serves, unable to win an extended run of points. A 27-shot rally at 16-10 in Game 2 was the longest of the match and SatChi were in complete control by this point, with Chirag often taking charge in the first three shots and Satwik putting away smashes at will. It eventually was a cruise into the second round for the former World No 1s.
Vinayakk Mohanarangan is Senior Assistant Editor and is based in New Delhi. ... Read More