Sindhu will sail with stamina, speed & skill
Tokyo Olympics
Day 6
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PV Sindhu vs Mia Blichfeldt
6.30 am IST
Live on SonyLIV
India badminton’s lone warroir P V Sindhu has been flying perfectly like the shuttle she’s been smashing on the court at the Tokyo Olympics. So far, she has played two group stage matches and won in straight sets against her lesser opponents from Israel and Hong Kong.
That’s a cool vantage point to enter World No 7 (seeded 6) PV knockout Round of 16 on July 29, 2021 where she meets Denmark’s World No 12 Mia Blichfeldt who too has topped her Group 1. Sindhu has met her in five encounters with the latest one going in the Dane’s favour when Sindhu lost to her in Yonex Thailand Open 2021.
Sindhu says, it is a difficult feat she will be attempting to achieve. Indeed, she is yet to be really test on court in Tokyo and she needs to be tight on her rhythm, confidence and skills while plugging all erratic niggles like net errors and out of court smashes that she often concedes in her bid for placements.
She has the Rio Silver and a good form to keep her confidence levels surefooted enough to keep her in the hunt till she arrives at the summit. She has just three more clashes to navigate if she were to ensure at least a Silver at Tokyo and bid for Gold.
In this pandemic ridden Olympics, fighting against all odds has become an anthem, what with as many as 174 accredited staff, including 20 athletes, testing positive for Covid 19. Sindhu is all of 26 years old, and this will be her last realistic Olympics bid for a medal, something that no one would know better than her.
The going gets tough from here on with no second chances, and the women’s pool is in the open sea with the likes of Chen Yu Fei, Tai Tzu-Ying, Nozomi Okuhara and Ratchanok Intanon there to give her a run for her medal even though a knee injury has kept defending champion Carolina Marin out of contention.
For today, she needs to forget her loss to the Dane at Thailand and recall her straight smash win against her at the Swiss Open semifinal. She would be aiming to not allow her opponent to push her into the third game and that will be possible if Sindhu shores up her strength, speed and stamina along with her quick thinking mind and change of strategy that may be needed if things start going south, just like she did against the Hong Kong girl in her previous match.
If all goes well our sunshine girl will meet Japan’s top seed Akane Yamaguchi in the quarter final. Yamaguchi has long been her Achilles’ heel even though she finally managed to get past her in the All England Open in 2019. But this is the Olympics and Yamaguchi is 23, at home and rearing to go for Gold at home, on familiar courts and with the food that she relishes, even though the big plus in home advantage – that of home crowds upsetting her opponents – will not be there in this pandemic ridden Olympics.
Hopefully, Sindhu, unlike Saina Nehwal, has managed to keep her training tight and her practice at the Gachibowli Indoor Arena at Hyderabad punishing amid all the COVID disruption and her parting of ways with super coach P Gopichand. She has also been in London on a good and balanced nutrition trip and had explained in an interview with Times of India that the Gachibowli facility was recommended by Gopichand himself for the national camp as it has AC blowers which can simulate the kind of drift that can throw around the shuttle at the Tokyo stadium.
All this preparation to the last detail and more, even though she has parted ways with Gopichand, will aid and abet her in her bid for a medal, this time under the guidance of her Korean coach Park Tae-Sang whom she credits with making her Olympic-ready.