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It turned out to be a case of being so near yet so far for Olympic medallist PV Sindhu who uffered a heartbreaking loss in the final at the Malaysia Masters badminton in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday.
Sindhu, 15th in the badminton world rankings, lost to China’s Wang Zhi Yi, the world No. 7, 21-16, 5-21, 16-21 in the title decider at the Axiata Arena.
The loss means Sindhu’s title drought on the BWF World Tour continues.
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The former world champion’s last win on tour came at the Singapore Open in July, where Sindhu, incidentally, had defeated Wang Zhi Yi in the final to lift the crown.
Playing in her first BWF World Tour final since the Spain Masters in April last year, Sindhu went toe-to-toe with second seed Wang in the opening stages.
After the mid-game break, though, the Indian badminton player swiftly shifted gears to take the lead.
In sharp contrast to how the opening game ended, the second game saw the Chinese shuttler dominate.
Wang Zhi Yi, who won the Indonesia Masters 2024 title earlier this year, was on top of her Indian opponent throughout and allowed Sindhu just five points before making the scoreline 1-1.
After the one-sided second game, Sindhu needed a strong response and the Paris 2024 Olympics-bound Indian shuttler found one to take a commanding eight-point lead heading into the mid-game break.
The momentum, however, changed again. Wang took the next five points to reduce the deficit before drawing level at 13-all.
From there on, the Chinese shuttler was in the driver’s seat as she wrapped up the encounter in one hour and 19 minutes to win her second title of the year.
This was Sindhu’s second loss to Wang in four meetings.
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