Indonesia Masters 2018: Saina Nehwal beats PV Sindhu convincingly; Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty triumph

Saina Nehwal is still the undisputed queen of Indian badminton, the pre-eminent exponent of the sport in this country. On the 69th anniversary of India adopting a Constitution and becoming a democratic republic, the Hyderabad-domiciled Haryanvi settled the piquant who’s-the-best question — at least for the time being — by handing her 22-year-old compatriot, PV Sindhu, a 21-13, 21-19 defeat, to barge into the semi-finals of the Indonesia Masters badminton championships in Jakarta. [caption id=“attachment_3965773” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Saina Nehwal. AFP[/caption] Later in the evening, the youthful Indian combination of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty produced the finest victory of their fledgling careers when they outhit and outlasted the fourth-seeded Danish combination of Mads Pieler Kolding and Mads Conrad-Petersen by a 23-21, 15-21, 21-19 verdict in an hour and six minutes, to earn a semi-final meeting with the top-seeded Indonesian duo of Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo. Saina, it will be remembered, had beaten Sindhu at 21-17, 27-25 when the two women had last encountered each other — in the Indian Nationals at Nagpur last November — so the result at the Istora Senayan in the Indonesian capital catapulted the 27-year-old World No 10 into a 3-1 lead over her Pullela Gopichand Academy fellow-trainee in the matter of head-to-head career encounters. Incidentally, the scalp of the second-seeded Sindhu, silver medallist at the 2016 Rio Olympics and currently ranked third in the world, was the second one of a higher ranked player claimed by the unseeded Saina in the $350,000 prize money third-level World Tour event. On Wednesday, the opening day of the main tournament, the former World No 1 had lowered the colours of the No 7 seed, Chen Yufei of China, in three tough games, after losing the opener narrowly. The fact that the two often play against each other in practice worked very much to Saina’s benefit, for all of Sindhu’s aggression was comfortably blunted by the more experienced shuttler, whose steely temperament, renowned fighting spirit and rich experience weighed more heavily in the balance against her taller compatriot’s greater reach and marginally faster court coverage. In a way, the course of their bouts against each other in recent months was reminiscent of the manner in which Danish legend Morten Frost was able to study the wiles and nuances of Prakash Padukone’s game when the Indian trained and played in Copenhagen in the wake of his famous victory at the 1980 All England, then considered the unofficial world championships. Frost, who was tamed 15-6, 15-10 by Prakash at the semi-final stage of that All England, did not lose again to the Indian in international competition. This is not to say that Saina, herself a bronze medallist at the 2012 London Olympics, will not lose to Sindhu again in the future. If anything, it seems inevitable, considering their five-year age gap, which is to Sindhu’s advantage; and the fact that Saina has been a finished product for several years, while — as coach Gopichand reiterated recently — Sindhu is still a work in progress. But for the time being at least, queen Saina is seated firmly on the throne. Amazing as it seems, considering the fact that Saina is a slow starter as compared to the gangling Sindhu, the older woman was never in deficit throughout the opening game. She took a 4-1 lead, was pegged back to 4-all; then opened out to 9-5 and was hauled back to 9-all. But after a six-point reel took her to 15-9, there was no stopping her inexorable march to the first game at 21-13. Sindhu was seen in a far more aggressive mien in the second stanza, powering to a 10-5 lead, but finding herself hitting a roadblock as her antagonist restored parity with a five-point reel. From that point on, it was a pitched battle, as mental as it was physical, with the girls going neck-and-neck until 14-all, when Saina powered to 19-15 and then 20-17; and just about managed to hold off Sindhu’s late charge. In the semi-final on Saturday, Saina, who looks as if her recovery from her post-Rio Olympics knee surgery and recent ankle injury is complete, will run into Thailand’s equally resurgent Ratchanok Intanon, who hit peak form to trounce reigning world champion Nozomi Okuhara of Japan by a runaway 21-17, 21-10 margin. Saina has had a long and bitter rivalry with Intanon, that started as far back as 2009 when the Indian was just emerging from the juniors and the Thai had barely hit her teens, being a precocious, but already towering, 13-year-old talent. Their first meeting, in the Malaysia Open Grand Prix Gold tournament in June 2009, ended in a victory for Saina by a wafer-thin margin, and was the first rapier thrust for the Indian, who currently leads their head-to-heads 8-5. It is significant that the Indian has won on the last couple of occasions that the two ace shuttlers have clashed — at the Australian Open in June 2016, and at the Indonesia Open Superseries Premier in June last year — the latter mainly as a result of the Thai’s indifferent fitness levels. However, Intanon’s recent results have revealed that her stamina woes are a thing of the past, even as her court movements have been smooth and speedy, and have afforded her full scope to unfurl her breathtaking repertoire of strokes. The unseeded Saina will go into the contest as the underdog, not least because she will be facing a player seeded No 4, but also because Intanon is playing some of the finest badminton of her career. Intanon’s convincing wins in the past few months over players of the calibre of World No 1, Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei, Okuhara and Spain’s former world champion Carolina Marin (at the 2017 All-England) have shown that the Thai is playing at much the same level as when she won the World Championship crown in 2013. The winner of the Saina-Intanon semi-final can look forward to facing either Tai, who was merciless in a summary 21-11, 21-8 demolition of South Korea’s fifth-seeded Sung Ji Hyun, or the shock fourth semi-finalist, China’s He Bingjiao, seeded eighth. In a quarter-final battle of left-handers, Bingjiao came to the party by administering the knockout punch to the No 3 seed and Olympic gold medallist, Carolina Marin of Spain, at 21-19, 12-21, 21-16. Friday, it could be said, was a night when reigning Olympic gold medallists and two-time former world champions, both coincidentally seeded No 3, were forced to bite the dust. China’s Chen Long, who had won the 2014 and 2015 men’s world championship titles when Marin had won the women’s equivalent, was bounced out of the Indonesian Masters by the robust, bustling Indonesian, Anthony Sinisuka Ginting. Riding on the back of full-throated crowd support at the newly refurbished Istora Senayan, the pint-sized Ginting outlasted Chen by a 21-11, 16-21, 21-18 scoreline, to barge into the semi-finals, where he will bump into sixth-seeded Taiwanese, Chou Tien Cheng. However, even the partisan crowd’s raucous encouragement failed to lift the spirits of veteran Indonesian Sony Dwi Kuncoro, whose giant-killing run came to an end by a 21-14, 21-14 margin, as he beat his head fruitlessly on the wall that was South Korea’s No 4 seed, Son Wan Ho. The other giant-killer in the men’s singles, Kazumasa Sakai, continued on his merry way with a comfortable 21-9, 21-18 triumph over Denmark’s Rasmus Gemke, and will clash with Son in the other semi-final on Saturday. It will give the 27-year-old Japanese a chance of making yet another final in the country where he first made a name for himself, by coming through the qualifiers and reaching the title round in the Indonesian Open Superseries Premier last year.