Paris [France]: Two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu secured a remarkable come-from-behind win against Michelle Li of Canada in her first-round match at the ongoing French Open badminton tournament on Wednesday.
In a marathon match that lasted 80 minutes, she beat Michelle by 20-22, 22-20, 21-19 at the Porte de la Chapelle Arena in Paris.
This was Sindhu’s return match on the Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Tour after a knee injury that kept her out of action since last year for four months. She got back to the court recently, securing the Badminton Asia Team Championships in Malaysia last month with the women’s team, as per Olympics.com.
Michelle, who is also making a comeback from injury, put Sindhu to her limits, with the Indian losing the first game. Sindhu was then trailing by 6-13 in the second game, but made a comeback to set up a decider. Sindhu also went on to secure a closely-fought decider and won her spot in the pre-quarters.
“I am happy and I ended up on the winning side because it was a hard-fought match where it could have been anybody’s game. I had to take one point at a time and just keep it going and stay patient,” said Sindhu.
“It is good that we are playing here before the Olympics and I am sure every time it is going to be different. You never know how it is going to be, but of course, the atmosphere it is really good inside and the crowd is fantastic,” Sindhu added when asked about her assessment of the venue, where the Olympic badminton matches will take place this year.
Sindhu’s next assignment will be the round of 16 match against world number 10, USA’s Beiwen Zhang. She last played Zhang in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open last year, where the Indian registered a loss.
Coming to the men’s singles competition, Kidambi Srikanth moved to the pre-quarterfinals with a victory over Chinese Taipei shuttler Chou Tien-chen by 21-15, 20-22, 21-8 in a well-fought match. This was his third win over the Chinese Taipei shuttler in seven matches.
But HS Prannoy came up short against China’s Lu Guang Zu, the world number 17th shuttler who beat him by 21-17, 21-17 to secure a pre-quarterfinals spot.
Srikanth, the world number 24 who upset the 14th-ranked Chou, will now play China’s Guang Zu in the pre-quarters.
