Pusarla Venkata Sindhu, commonly known as PV Sindhu (born 5 July 1995) is an Indian professional badminton player. She is the first Indian to become the Badminton World Champion and the first Indian woman to earn an Olympic silver medal in 2016. She rose to a career-high world ranking of no. 2 in April 2017.India’s hopes for a badminton Gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics came to an end on Saturday evening as the ace PV Sindhu was knocked out in the semi-final of the Women’s singles event by the World number 1 Tai Tzu Zing. The intensely fought contest lasted 40 minutes as Tai won 21-18, 21-12.

However she outlasted world No. 5 Japanese shuttler Akane Yamaguchi 16-21, 21-16, 21-19 in the All England Open Badminton Championships quarter-finals to enter the top four of the women’s singles event. Sindhu however remains in contention for the Bronze medal, for which she will take the court on Sunday at 5pm IST. She will face China’s He Bingjiao for the Bronze.

It was Tai who started off with a quick 2-0 lead before Sindhu rattled of four points, leaving the opponent on the floor with a fantastic cross court smash. The two players, well acquainted with each other’s game, kept chipping away, finding the angles and using the depth of the court well to pick points off. Sindhu led 11-8 at mid-game in the first game.

After the break, Tai upped the ante and as did Sindhu. However, Tai, who was showing off her full repertoire of shots, quickly cut down the lead, bringing things to level pegging even as the Indian kept up, for most of the first game. Quite simply, none were giving away an inch but Tai, who played catch-up for most of the first game won it at 21-18 in 21 minutes.