PV Sindhu books spot in Korea Open Superseries badminton final vs Nozomi Okuhara
PV Sindhu beat He Bingjiao 21-10, 17-21, 21-16 in the semi-final of the Korea Open Superseries and will face Nozomi Okuhara in the final.
PV Sindhu beat He Bingjiao of China 21-10, 17-21, 21-16 in the semi-final of the Korea Open Superseries to book her place in the final of the tournament in Seoul.
PV Sindhu started the match strongly, racing away to a 4-1 lead in the first game and immediately pushing He Bingjiao on the back foot.
As a result, He Bingjiao struggled to get any momentum going and PV Sindhu duly took an 11-4 lead at the break. Sindhu then kept her composure to comfortably wrap up the first game 21-10 in just 16 minutes.
He Bingjiao continued to look second best to PV Sindhu in the beginning of the second game as the Indian took an early 3-0 lead.
Sindhu then continued to dominate the match and took an 11-6 lead at the break. At that point, her place in the final seemed all but confirmed.
However, Bingjiao finally found her rhythm and reduced the deficit to 12-10 before mounting a comeback to take a 15-16 lead.
With momentum now firmly on her side, He Bingjiao won five of the next six points and took the second game 21-17.
The final game started as a back-and-fourth affair, with many long rallies taking a toll on both competitors as they attempted to get the early advantage.
PV Sindhu won the longest rally of the game and pulled away to a 6-4 lead, but Bingjiao kept up the pressure and eventually levelled the score at 9-9.
Despite that, she was unable to prevent PV Sindhu going into the break with a lead of 11-9. Sindhu then took advantage of some unforced errors from Bingjiao to take a 17-14 lead.
The Indian shuttler won four of the next six points to take the deciding game 21-16 and enter the finals of the Korea Open Superseries.
PV Sindhu will take on Nozomi Okuhara of Japan the in final on Sunday.