GUANGZHOU, China: India’s Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu continued her unbeaten run while her compatriot and debutant Sameer Verma also qualified for the knockout stage with a straight-game win in his last group ‘B’ match at the $1.5million BWF World Tour Finals yesterday.
Playing her third successive year-ending finale, Sindhu dished out some deceptive strokes and showed precision during the 35-minute contest to prevail over world No. 12 Beiwen Zhang 21-9 21-15 in a one-sided women’s singles contest to top Group ‘A’.
“I was down 2-6 initially but I picked up the lead, so after that I was fine,” Sindhu, the last edition’s runner-up, said after the match.
Sindhu plays Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon in today’s.
There was heartbreak for World No. 1 Tai Tzu-ying.
The Taiwanese retired with a right hamstring strain against Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi and said: “I’ve never had this injury before.
Yamaguchi will face Nozomi Okuhara in an all-Japanese semi-final.
On the adjacent court, 24-year-old Sameer showed great athleticism and produced a masterful performance to demolish Thailand’s Kantaphon Wangcharoen 21-9 21-18 in 44 minutes.
After losing the opening match to World No. 1 and world champion Kento Momota, Sameer, who qualified for the tournament after defending his title at the Syed Modi International last month, recovered well to come up trumps against his other two opponents in Group ‘B’.
Varma takes on Shi Yuqi in today’s last four.
The all-action Japanese star Kento Momota powered past Indonesia’s Tommy Sugiarto 21-14, 21-8 in just 36 minutes.
Momota, the man to beat, will be strong favourite against South Korea’s Son Wan-ho in their semi-final.
The 24-year-old Momota has won all three of his matches this week without dropping a game.
Victory in Guangzhou would be a fitting end to a spectacular year in which he has reached number one in the world for the first time and won his maiden world title.
It is all a far cry from 2016, when he was banned for more than a year by the Japanese team for visiting an illegal casino, missing the Rio Olympics.