![\"sindhu-gopichand\"](\"https:\/\/sports.smartworld.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/sindhu-300x165.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In the prestigious season-ending tournament finale, Sindhu played her heart out before losing 21-15 12-21 19-21 to Yamaguchi in an energy-sapping summit clash that lasted an hour and 31 minutes.<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old came agonisingly close to clinching the title before finishing runner-up once again in her third major tournament, following last year’s Rio Olympics and this year’s Glasgow World Championship.<\/p>\n
In scenes similar to the World Championship final in Glasgow in August, the summit clash here went down to the wire as the duo engaged in a battle of attrition and nerves.<\/p>\n
Playing her fourth final of the season, Sindhu logged the first point with a magnificent down the line smash. However, a couple of unforced errors and a wrong judgment at the baseline allowed Yamaguchi to make it 3-2.<\/p>\n
Sindhu again eked out a 8-6 lead with a return on her rival’s forehand. Yamaguchi too missed the line again as the Indian led 9-7. A backhand tap near the net gave another point to Sindhu, who entered the interval with a three-point advantage after Yamaguchi sent another to the net.<\/p>\n
Sindhu missed the line again and then Yamaguchi pushed the shuttle away at the back as the lead exchanged hands again.<\/p>\n
A cross court return on the line earned Sindhu a point and she draw level when Yamaguchi’s miscued drop shot went to the net. Sindhu produced a precise cross court smash but Yamaguchi unleashed a prompt return to serve to move to 19-18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Top Indian shuttler P V Sindhu suffered yet another final loss, going down against World No. 2 Akane Yamaguchi of Japan in a pulsating women’s singles summit clash of the Dubai Super Series Final. In the prestigious season-ending tournament finale, Sindhu played her heart out before losing 21-15 12-21 19-21 to Yamaguchi in an energy-sapping …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"two_page_speed":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1360],"tags":[5224,5287],"class_list":["post-3710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-badminton-news","tag-sindhu","tag-world-championship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartzworld.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}