India’s rising shuttler PV Sindhu on Thursday registered a stunning upset victory over defending champion Yihan Wang of China to join Saina Nehwal in the women’s singles quarterfinals at the World Badminton Championships in Guangzhou.
In the men’s singles, Parupalli Kashyap also recorded an upset victory over world number six Yun Hu of Hong Kong 21-13, 21-16 in a 37-minute contest to enter into the third round.
Sindhu, ranked 12th, took 55 minutes to send her world number five and London Olympics silver medallist opponent packing by winning the third round match in straight games at the Tianhe Indoor Stadium. Sindhu won 21—18, 23—21 to register the biggest upset of the tournament so far.
Third seed Saina beat Porntip Buranaprasertsuk of Thialand 18—21, 21—16, 21—14 in a clash which lasted 52 minutes to also move into the quarterfinals.
Sindhu had a neck-and-neck tussle with her more fancied opponent, seeded second in the tournament, till 8-8 before the Indian surged ahead to open a 12—9 lead. But the higher-ranked Chinese was not the one to give it up so easily and it was again a closely-contested affair till 16—16.
But thereafter Sindhu, seeded 10th, won two consecutive points, which she followed up by widening the margin to eventually win the first game 21—18.
The second game started on equal footing and went on till 6—6 before Sindhu managed to take a huge 13—7 lead. Continuing to build on the initial advantage, the girl from Hyderabad kept on extending the gap and made it 20—17.
But the Chinese dug deep into her vast experience to save as many as three match points to make it 20—20 and then took it a step further by bagging another point to take an upper hand on 21—20.
Sindhu, however, maintained her composure to save the match point before going for the final kill. The young Indian now runs into world number eight Shixian Wang of China.