After suffering a defeat in the quarter-finals of the ongoing India Open 2025, top badminton player P V Sindhu has vowed to come back stronger. Satwiksraj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty remain on course for a second successive Indian Open final with straight-set wins over Korea’s Young Jin and Kang Min-hyuk in the men’s doubles quarter-finals while PV Sindhu and Kiran George were eliminated in the BWF World Tour Super 750. At the KD Hall Jadhav interior on Friday.
Speaking to reporters, PV Sindhu said that it was a sad moment for her to lose the match after fighting till the third set.
Sindhu told reporters, “In general, I feel it is anyone’s match. It is sad that I lost in the third set after a tough fight. I have to come back stronger. It is disappointing.”
There were a lot of positives for Sindhu to take home. The 29-year-old, who has struggled with injuries since the Paris Olympics, struggled with her movements in the opener but moved on to her opponent once she found her range.
Trailing 3-9 in the second half, Sindhu began to push Tunjung to the back of the court thus neutralizing Indonesia’s fast shooting intensity and keeping the shuttle long enough in play to force her opponent into a foul.
She caught Tunjung 9-9 and although both players remained close after that, Sindhu was able to take the match to a decider by forcing the fourth seed to take more risks to try and win points.
The former champion continued the same strategy in the deciding set and looked like she could script an upset with both players remaining at 17-17. Some brilliant strikes from Tunjung and poor refereeing from Sindhu ended up deciding the fate of the match that lasted an hour and two minutes.
Speaking to reporters, Chirag Shetty said that he and his partner Satwiksairaj had the match on fire on Friday. Chirag added that they are putting pressure on opponents.
“We unleashed all our weapons. In the end, they (opponents) were able to defend with shots… We didn’t really want them back in the game… Our strongest point was putting them under pressure…,” Chirag Shetty told reporters.
Speaking to reporters, Satwiksraj Rankireddy said that they were always in control of the match.
“We knew that if we kept pressuring them, they wouldn’t be able to continue… We were always in control of the game… We were very positive from the start of the game…”, Satwiksraj. He told reporters.
It was the pairing of Satwik and Chirag that gave the large crowd at the KD Jadhav Hall enough reasons to celebrate as they played out an almost clinical match against the Koreans, who upset the top seeds and world No. 1s. 1 Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen in the opening round.
The Asian Games gold medal-winning team took a 9-1 lead in the opening match, then took control and won the match in 18 minutes. The two Koreas put up a tougher fight in the second match and the Indians were not under any pressure.
In the semi-finals, they will face third seeds Sze Fai Goh and Nur Izzuddin of Indonesia.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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