BWF World Championship 2019: Another chance for P V Sindhu to bag the elusive gold
No matter how Sindhu's form is over the course of a year, there's one tournament where she never disappoints - the World Championship.
The gala time of badminton - World Championships is a couple of days away and Indians are going with a renewed hope that the silver and bronze medals of previous years will be converted to gold this time. The 2019 Badminton World Championship will be held in Basel, Switzerland from 19th August till 25th August 2019. P V Sindhu clinched the bronze medal at the 2013 BWF World Championship (Source: Badminton Photo) 2014 World Championship followed a similar suite as she defended her bronze medal from the previous year. As was the case with last year, she overcame the then Chinese 2nd seeded Wang Shixian before losing in the semi-finals to eventual title winner Carolina Marin who had been her Achilles heel in every World championship since then. 2015 World Championship has been her only blot in an otherwise impressive World Championship resume. It till date remains the only year she didn't return with a medal in World Championships ever since she broke out into the scene in 2013. It wasn't a poor tournament by any stretch as she reached the quarter-finals before losing to top Korean singles seed Sung Ji Hyun against whom she has a mixed H2H record till date. 2017 World Championship was the most memorable performance for Sindhu till date, as this was the first final she had reached after three attempts the previous years. It was one of the most memorable finals performances the championship had ever seen. In a thrilling display of top-notch badminton, which spread over three sets, she lost to Nozomi Okuhara with the slenderest of margins which could have swung either way. She suffered a heartbreaking loss with a scoreline of 19-21; 22-20, 20-22. An interesting observation here was that Okuhara knocked Marin out in the quarter-finals denying the Spaniard a third consecutive World Championship. 2018 World Championship followed similar suite as she reached the finals for the second consecutive time before eventually losing to Carolina Marin who had come back to haunt her after losing the previous year. It was a defeat that she would never want to have in her memory as the physical beast that Marin is, blitzed past Sindhu with a scoreline of 21-19; 21-10 leaving Sindhu with no answers, who offered little to no resistance. P V Sindhu settled for a silver after being defeated by Carolina Marina in 2018 BWF World Championship (Source: Badminton Photo) P V Sindhu has faced tough competition from Akane Yamaguchi this year (Source: Badminton Photo) Should Sindhu come over the Zhang hurdle, she is likely to run into the artistic queen Tai Tzu Ying in the quarter-finals. Tai was recently dethroned from World no. 1 position, by Akane Yamaguchi, despite having a phenomenal 2019 so far and has only seen a slight slump in the last month losing both the Indonesia Open and Japan Open. Tai enjoys an impressive 10-4 head-to-head record against Sindhu. In the last two years, Sindhu has lost six games against Tai, consecutively, before winning one at the 2018 BWF World Tour finals tournament, which happens to be the last time they both met. Tai is a tough customer, who can drain the energy out of you by just making you cover all the four corners of your court by her deception. Sindhu had mentioned earlier in the year that against Tai, it's just a matter of being able to reach all the deliveries that she throws at her. She was able to live up to that tactic having triumphed in the 2018 year-end finals. But can she do it again this time remains to be seen. Ironically, Tai has never won the World Championship, despite being the most consistent player in the badminton circuit over the years and is in search of her elusive World Championship medal.