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PV Sindhu beats Yamaguchi in a classic to make All England semis

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As she inches closer to Indian badminton’s Holy Grail — the All England title — PV Sindhu’s Friday blockbuster with Akane Yamaguchi might be a good time to acknowledge that no one in Indian sport quite triggers the entertaining endorphins as the famous shuttler jamming with one of the Japanese.

There’s honour and glory and medals and money that all sport offers; but Sindhu seems to have an unspoken pact with the two Japanese women – Okuhara and Yamaguchi, to take their battles into the realms of last-ball sixes, penalty shootouts, Round 12 KOs or buzzer-beating 3Ps. Except, Sindhu is a one-person team packing it all in her 1 hour+ (76 mins on Friday) outings against the Nippon nutcrackers.

A loss wouldn’t have altered classification of this 2021 All England quarterfinal as a classic. But in signalling her return to being one of the game’s grandest contemporary show-women, Sindhu won the titanic clash 16-21, 21-16, 21-19 for good measure. The usually sedate coach Park Tae Sang was conducting the orchestra of her movements, but often grew animated like an audience mesmerized into his feisty version of ‘Bravo!’

Knowing her appetite for serotonin Sundays, Sindhu might well line up a final against Okuhara and turn it up a notch further. But a win over Yamaguchi is double dopamine, because it’s not just long, gladiatorial running rallies of Glasgow circa 2017 World Championships.

Yamaguchi, an audaciously attacking player, was beaten by a combative Sindhu in a romp of pugnacious retrieves alright, but the high notes were the aggressive pyro-strokes.

There’s a fluidity of hitting that’s slid smoothly into Sindhu’s game now – on days when the battles get ginormously gutsy, she parries off body attacks with agile racquet angles, she picks low retrieves like at 15-18 in the opener, dragging them from inches off the ground at her backline forehand corner and sending them back cross-court in a whiplash to finish a 23-shot rally. Yamaguchi had been sending every shuttle back, so Sindhu would send them mooning high to attempt to wrench out errors. The Indian though sharp on her forehand slice drops, would find herself trailing 21-16.

What probably makes this one of Sindhu’s finest matches of her career – even minus the context – is that Yamaguchi was playing a very high quality game herself, and Sindhu was going to need tremendous mental fortitude to overturn that initial reversal.

It can safely be said that the sheer class of both their games didn’t drop till the end. So after trailing from the 19 minute first set, Sindhu set about fighting back – never dominant, but always dogged.

The immediate difference was in her hand speed. Some of the reflex returns, the sheer speed with which she rocketed the shuttle flat back across the net, were breathtaking. It is well-known that Sindhu consciously imparts pace on her returns to wriggle out of trouble. She hit that fourth gear straight away at the start of the second to lead 11-6.

Yamaguchi was trying to break Sindhu’s will on the stretched lunge to the right forecourt net – an old Japanese ploy against her. It worked even in pegging her back, but Sindhu was countering meantime with sky-scraping punch clears that the 5’2″ Yamaguchi would send back by curving her spine, but they began taking a toll on her ability to monopolise the initiative in any rally.

The third seed’s cross-court smashes tend to be effective against Sindhu, but the sixth seed would deny her the length and opportunity. So the bird would go sailing high and take forever to dip at the backline from Sindhu’s punch clears. Meanwhile, she would turbocharge her follow-up stroke at the net.

Leading throughout in the second, Sindhu would suffer a few gasping long-rally drains on her energy, but not before denting Yamaguchi’s usually inexhaustible stubbornness. Because Sindhu’s attack is so in-your-face powerful, her persistent defense can deflate unexpecting opponents much more, and more than once in rallies of 25 shots, 29 and 36 even, the Indian would refuse to allow Yamaguchi to say that last word on their exchange.

At 16-21, 21-16, Sindhu would appear to be spent – misleading as it would turn out for the Japanese 23-year-old who reckoned she’d done enough to run through the decider. But Sindhu was in no mood to cave in. She would sit down on the bench in the break, as coach Park would encourage her to go wide for the lines.

One of Sindhu’s lesser known talents is her control of the shuttle in myriad conditions. So even as Yamaguchi over-hit to the backline with the drift from behind her, Sindhu had a grip on the shuttle when going for the lines. She would race to 15-11, but then allow herself to get annoyed by a distraction.

Chair umpire Chris Johannsen had already red-carded a doubles player earlier in the day for time-wasting. Sindhu had gotten his goat – at this exhausted juncture with a couple of previous delays in serving, and the chair would disallow her request to towel down, though she was sweating buckets.

Yamaguchi would pounce at the opportunity, and come right back into the match with four quick points to level at 15-15 in the decider. Sindhu smartly changed the shuttle even as Yamaguchi would pick 7 of the 9 points at that stage. Then the arms would start whirring double quick in anticipation of the finish. Sindhu is near-unstoppable for the Japanese and Tai Tzu even, when her power gets a shiny coat of speed. From leading 17-15 in the decider, Sindhu would be resisted by Yamaguchi who went up 18-17. At 19-all in badminton usually roofs collapse on the under-confident ones, but Yamaguchi needed to be tangled cleverly. Sindhu would lure her to the front corner and draw out an error on the flick return that sailed wide. A moment later it had gotten all too much for Yamaguchi who would end the misery with a return into the net.

Sindhu would roar in the empty stadium, baring her emotion and how much this win meant to her. Since the World Championships, Sindhu has copped the snides about how she’s drifted too far from the main pack. Carolina Marin had cleaved open the wound even more after the finals at Swiss Open.

Now, though it can be said with certainty, and without any preconditions of title wins, that Sindhu is back. The Yamaguchi win put her right back where she belongs – at the centre of badminton’s grandest entertaining universe.

Post Script: Pornpawee Chochuwong is a slippery semifinal opponent. She’s rarely troubled Sindhu in the past, except right after the Indian’s World title in 2019 at China Open. However, the young Thai has beaten Carolina Marin in her backyard in Spain for her first title in 2020. And she got stuck into Tai Tzu Ying at the World Tour Finals this January, blitzing the Taipese.

Sindhu though has swatted her aside in the last match they played. Okuhara plays Ratchanok in Semi 2. Another Sindhu vs Japan humdinger is looking imminent.



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All England: PV Sindhu faces tricky rival Akane Yamaguchi in quarterfinal clash

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Akane Yamaguchi has a slightly unsettling relationship with discomfort – much to her opponents’ dismay, it’s unsettling for the opponents. The Japanese is comfortable with irritants. Tall rivals, fast rivals, clever rivals, Japanese rivals, calm rivals, tempestuous rivals and rivals going by the name Carolina Marin: Yamaguchi can counter all manners of games and conditions, with an expressive shaking of her floppy hair.

The biggest mistake an opponent can make before putting a lid on her busy-bee prancing game, is to think that Yamaguchi can be cornered. PV Sindhu, chasing her first All England crown, runs into this yo-yo ball, who has played just one international match in 2021 – the opener at Birmingham.

Her second-round opponent from Turkey was withdrawn following a Covid trace and test scare. Admittedly, Yamaguchi runs into Sindhu on the back of a long layoff dating back to last All England.

The one exception to be seriously considered though, is Japan’s National championship, where she lost 22-20 in the third to Nozomi Okuhara. The senior Japanese has spent most of 2020 training in lockdown at Olympics’ Ground Zero improving her footwork to deal with Yamaguchi’s tricky returns.

So Sindhu might want to remember that opponents from powerhouses like Japan, have no dearth of competitive domestic sparring. So Yamaguchi’s relative rustiness might not be the comfort to lean on.

Sindhu leads Yamaguchi 10-7. She’s become a World Champion since that particular statistic froze. But the tricky returns that Okuhara is fixated on, are bubbling like always in Yamaguchi’s repertoire.

Sindhu’s reach can torment Yamaguchi. Her aggression, not as much as it works against the relatively shorter players like Okuhara, Chen Yufei and Tai Tzu Ying. For Yamaguchi brings her own attack into the mix. She has a respectable smash kill and a defense that may leak points initially when Sindhu powers her cross-court deep smashes along the lines. But Yamaguchi likes her back and forths: a string of deflated errors is not exactly what she concedes. There will be resistance even if Sindhu takes off in one of her rampaging starts.

Playing her first match, Yamaguchi had frowned about the air-conditioning and drift irritating her, till the end of the match she won 14, 17. No audience means the winds blow “here and there” like Sindhu herself pointed out.
It will be an exciting pitting of wits between the two women, who’ve never won All England, and are being guided by Korean coaches. Both are fresh relatively, not really stretched in their outings the last two days. Both believe in sweetly conveying that there will be no quarter given.

Big Mark Caljouw stands in Sen’s way to semis

Lakshya Sen ought to start as favourite against World No 36 Mark Caljouw. (File)

A hulking Dutchman Mark Caljouw stands in the way of Lakshya Sen making the All England semis in only his second outing at Birmingham.

“He should mentally be prepared for a long match.The Dutch guy is big and has a good defense. Lakshya should not get desperate and should attack at the right time,” Sen’s coach Vimal Kumar said.

Sen’s last match at 2020’s All England was against Viktor Axelsen, who posed a similar problem to the Indian. “He has a good defense and has been playing well. He got the better of Prannoy in the Swiss Open last week,” he added.

Lakshya tends to get a bit frustrated against retrievers. “He is very tall and has a good hit as well. He has beaten Lakshya in one of the PBL games,” the coach added.

It’s been a torrid 6 months for Lakshya, starting with Germany where his father would test positive, and Lakshya wasbarred from playing. “Lakshya has nothing to lose and a win can give him a lot of confidence considering the misery he went through last 6 months. Back injury, COVID,” Vimal said.

But at Birmingham, he’s looked in good touch. “He has no issues last 3 weeks and when he played in the Swiss he just did not have the confidence. Hope a few wins and more matches can help him play at a similar level like early last year,” the coach said.

Sen ought to start as favourite against World No 36 Caljouw, four years his senior. Ranked at No 28, Sen will back himself to make the semis, given the confident manner in which he has strided forward against Kantaphon Wangcharoen and Thomas Rouxel on two consecutive days.

Historically prone to fading off as the match progressed, Sen has shown massive improvements in grabbing the initiative and finishing the job with his mix of aggression and a solid end-game.

What he will need to guard against when taking on the Dutch shuttler, is the relative ease with which Caljouw can tackle Indian players.

He is on 8-3 wins against Indians in the last four years, and tends to play a disarming, harmless game, chipping away before shifting gears to bring in the bulk.

Sen, who’s looked solid, minus any hiccups, will relish the opportunity to make his maiden semis and is capable of playing the composed game. And break the chain of Indians who seem to end up on the losing side against Caljouw.



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