Badminton
PV Sindhu clinches bronze and wins India its third medal at the Tokyo Olympics
After a silver at 2016 Rio, PV Sindhu fetched herself a bronze medal at Tokyo Olympics and created history by sidestepping the challenge of He Bingjiao.
He Bingjiao goes head to head against PV Sindhu (Source: Getty images)
All too familiar with the creation of history, World No. 7 shuttler PV Sindhu won India its third medal at the ongoing Tokyo Olympics. Having missed out on the gold opportunity by a margin, PV Sindhu did not squander away the next chance she had at a medal and fiercely fought her way to win a bronze and take her Olympic medal tally to 2!
The 2016 Rio Olympics silver medalist had originally planned on upgrading the medal to gold at Tokyo but since World No. 1 Tai Tzu-ying played spoilsport to her plans, Sindhu readjusted her dream as well and won the bronze in style. Needing 53 minutes to seal the deal and become India's very first woman with 2 Olympic medals, PV Sindhu clinched the bronze, 21-13, 21-15, thus becoming the third Indian to win a medal at this year's Olympic Games joining Mirabai Chanu who win India's first medal, a silver, Lovlina Borgohain, who's already guaranteed India a medal and we await to see what colour it would be.
Coming into the match, the Chinese World No. 9, He Bingjiao who has shown a spirited form at the Tokyo Olympics, boasted of a 9-6 lead in their head to head. However, in their last meeting at the 2019 HSBC World Tour Finals, it was Sindhu who broke the Chinese southpaw's winning streak by defeating her, 19-21, 19-21.
PV Sindhu is synonymous to big match player and she lived upto the tag. She looked like the superior player from the get go as she commanded the pace of the game and dictated terms of the rallies with her superb display of badminton. Her baseline gameplay was exquisite as she played some beautiful cross court drop shots and smashes to take the game away from the Chinese. Bingjiao made a comeback of sort when she started to induce some netplay but it wasn't enough for the World No. 9 as "sensational Sindhu" wrapped up the first game, 21-13.
The onus was on the Chinese to stay in the match and to do that, she had to win the second game. We saw a much better Bingjiao in the second game as she went toe to toe with Sindhu. Strangely, she didn't play a single netplay for the better half of the second game as Sindhu replicated the first interval score of the first game and took a 11-8 lead at the game interval. The Chinese started to initiate some good defensive rallies and her smashes proved to be too good for Sindhu as she made a comeback by winning 3 points on the trot. If you were to ask someone the highlight of the match, they'd say it would have to be the tactic of Sindhu which was to push the Chinese to the baseline with a long shot and then a netplay making the Chinese come at the net and then a cross court smash. This was repeatedly done by Sindhu to which Bingjiao didn't seem to have any answers whatsoever. "5 bronze medal match points" is what 1.3 billion Indians had been waiting to see on the screen and when the cross court smash of Sindhu wasn't returned by her opponent, PV Sindhu, her coach Park Tae-Sang and 1.3 billion people erupted in joy. It was a bronze medal for the ace Indian shuttler.
Her second medal at back to back Olympic Games and we cousins have been happier.
Sensations Sindhu does it, again! The shuttler has a long way to go and we all hope it'll be a gold for her, 3 years from now when she turns up at Paris.
