Indian badminton star P V Sindhu could not cap off her dream run at the Denmark Open with a title, as she went down 21-19, 21-12 to Li Xuerui in the Final on Sunday.
Playing her maiden Super Series final, the two-time bronze medallist could not break the stranglehold of Li, who played a compact game and rode on her repertoire of strokes to bag the title in 47 minutes.
In the opening game, Li opened up a slender 3-0 lead early on but Sindhu soon wrested control at 8-6 and then ended the break with a 11-10 lead. After the breather, Sindhu stepped on the gas and zoomed to a massive 16-10 lead.
However, Li soon closed the gap to 13-16. But a down the line smash from Sindhu helped her gather another point. The Indian lost a couple of points at the nets to allow Li claw back to 16-17.
Li then engaged in a flat game and Sindhu failed to connect. Her shot got buried at the nets and the Chinese gained a two-point lead to be at 20-18. An accurate down the line return helped Sindhu save one but she erred in judging the shuttle next to allow Li walk away with the first game that lasted 26 minutes.
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In the second game, Li again moved to a 3-1 lead after Sindhu lost her second video referral. Errors seemed to creep in her game as her smashes were going wide and long, allowing Li to surge ahead 6-1 in a jiffy.
The drift in the hall also bothered Sindhu as she could not gauge the length of the shots even as Li rode on some spectacular shots to move to 13-4. With her armoury of shots, Li left Sindhu wrong-footed and sometimes completely clueless to soon move to 15-7.
Li reached match point after Sindhu hit long once again and she won her first title of the injury-ridden season without much ado with another shot which the Indian let go.
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