Sindhu beats Okuhara 21-14, 21-7, storms into Indonesia semis

TIL Desk Sports/ P.V. Sindhu beat world no. 2 Nozomi Okuhara 21-14, 21-7 to storm into the semi-final of the Indonesia Open on Friday. The match lasted just 41 minutes, making it the fastest victory for the no.5 ranked Indian over her Japanese rival.

Sindhu will now face world no.3 Chen Yufei in the semi-final on Saturday. The Chinese had beaten US” Beiwen Zhang 21-14, 17-21, 21-16. Sindhu has a 4-3 head to head in maches against Chen.

This was the 15th time Sindhu and Okuhara had faced each other and the former now holds an 8-7 head to head lead. Their previous match was at the semi-final of the Singapore Open where Okuhara had recorded a 21-7, 21-11 victory.

The match started on a close note and it was after 5-5 that Sindhu pulled away. She held a 11-8 lead in the first game after which Okuhara started committing a number of unforced errors which led to her losing the game 13-21. Sindhu maintained her momentum and raced to a 11-6 lead in the second game. Okuhara would only manage to get one more point as she crashed to a 7-21 loss.