It was a good sight to see India’s ace shuttler PV Sindhu back in their rhythm as she reached the finals of the Madrid Masters. However unfortunately she missed out on the final hurrah as she went down to Indonesia’s Gregoria Mariska Tunjung in the finals.
Sindhu was unable to judge Tunjung’s flicks and was made to work very hard for each of her points. Tunjung won the finals in straight games 21-8, 21-8.
However the most notable part of the story was that she defeated Carolina Marin and PV Sindhu on consecutive days and lived up to her nickname of Ratchanok Lite. Many people feel that Tunjung’s playing style in similar Ratchanok Intanon. While her movement and elegance is quite influence by the Thai shuttler, Tunjung was not playing at Intanon’s speed as her leg was heavily strapped during the finals.
Tunjung’s strategy was to hit forehand back corners and use flicks and clears down the other corner. While it was a pretty straightforward strategy, Sindhu was crowded with the variety as she had to run a lot. The Indonesian also played very cleanly without much errors and that piled up the pressure on the Indian shuttler.
Tunjung started off with a 5-1 lead and soon with her consistent good shots, she reached 11-6 in no time. While we hardly see Sindhu being outplayed, here Tunjung made her work very hard. She was always chasing and lunging low. Her opponent was well aware about her physical condition and she did not allow Sindhu to hit her own smash or even attack in that sense.
Both the games were the replica of each other and both ended with a similar scoreline of 21-8. Many people expected Sindhu to turn up and fight for the second game, it was Tunjung’s supremacy written all over the match.
This was Tunjung’s first World title and she is only aged 23 with a very bright future in front of her. This will be a special tournament for her given that she won against Marin and Sindhu on consecutive days. She had lost seven times against Sindhu prior to this and hence it was a test of her character and she did exceptionally well on such a big night.
Sindhu, who recently dropped out of the top 10 World Rankings for the first time since 2016 will take positive from this tournament. She showed more fight in this tournament ever since returning from injury and will hope to carry forward this momentum.
