The last time PV Sindhu took a set off World No 1 and Olympic champion An Se-young was in April of 2023. With her 10th loss to the era’s greatest shuttler, a 21-17, 21-15 straight sets put-down at the Super 1000 Indonesia Open, there is danger of a fatalistic feeling taking root: that she might never beat the Korean. It would go against what made Sindhu India’s highest achieving shuttler, and the legacy of her 5 big medals – Rio silver and the two bronzes and silvers at World’s or the 2019 title, where she did not allow the greatness of her opponents from eventually beating them anyway.
Her absolute self-assurance started with the Chinese she decimated, and culminated in her greatest win, the 2019 quarterfinals against Tai Tzu-ying at the Basel World’s. If she could solve the Tai Tzu-ying riddle, she ought to back herself to one day – soon – beat An Se-young too.
The 21-17, 21-15 however was nowhere close to how to get that done. Coach Irwansyah will need to play the part that Pullela Gopichand did in guiding her across the Tzu-ying hurdle with pinpoint inputs in shot selection.
The Taiwanese was an equally difficult opponent for Sindhu – beating her 7 times, losing twice before the Basel gold, and defeating the Indian 9 times post that memorable Sindhu masterclass. But in those two instances – Rio Olympics and 2019 World Championships, Sindhu kept a steady belief all through respective 41 minutes and 71 minutes, that she could win.
Against Se-young, Sindhu needs to believe herself, that she can get into a 19-19 situation, after which that decisive point is snared away, with strategy.
Right this moment, Sindhu doesn’t seem to believe she can, as is evident from how she disintegrates after Se-young reaches the 17th point.
Last week in Singapore and again to a lesser extent in Indonesia, Sindhu showed she has the weapons to trouble the Korean. Make no mistake, the straight set margins do not give a proper picture of how much, she can put Se-young on the edge in the early part of the first set. But 17, 15 are pretty accurate scores at explaining how quickly Sindhu loses hope, fades away when Se-young hits the next gear.
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Sindhu was on the ball after trailing 1-4 and 10-13. Using her big game and the tramline-adjacent zone on Se-young’s backhand, she had caught up at 16-16. But finishing needs solidity. Se-young is World No 1 for a reason – she can raise the ante of her own attack in this phase, not just against Sindhu but every other player. But if the defense holds sturdy, which needs every ounce of focus and self belief in her strengths, then Sindhu has her kill weapon against the Korean. The clutch-mentality is missing, and even Irwansyah can’t seem to sort it out.
She has lost 21-(17, 15), (17,14), (14, 13), (19, 11), (21-18, followed by 5, 9), (15, 14), (14,17), (16, 12), (11,12), (14,17) in her 10 matches. That’s not even a look-in or a half-chance, given second sets are near always blow-outs, which points to an endurance issue too. Since titles will need to be won by beating Se-young anyway, early rounds is perhaps Sindhu’s best chance at it.
Sindhu finds high success with body attacks and the backhand line outright winners. But denying Se-young the chance to blitz through, is also an art. Accuracy is not a Se-young weakness, but Sindhu hasn’t managed to test the Korean with a holding game-followed by a sudden attack. Her own backhand high defense and body parries make her vulnerable on the follow-up, but the intensity simply drops as the Olympic champion nears the finish.
Sindhu didn’t get all those wins by thinking ‘nobody was beating the Chinese.’ But there’s a strange inevitability that Sindhu has mentally bought into her mind, which she succumbs to from Point 17 onwards.
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It’s the easiest loss to get over, given everyone falls like a pack of cards against An Se-young. But Sindhu has the rare attack that can faze the Korean. Only if she could hit the next gear in speed and agility, and then believe that she can.
Ayush loses
Ayush Shetty frittered a first set advantage, to go down to stubborn Hong Kongese Lee Cheuk Yiu, 21-16, 13-21, 14-21.
Ayush, whose height is 193 cms more than what the BWF App attributes to him, made the most of his big attack in the opener. But he got crowded at the net and the back, when World No 23 Lee unleashed his straight winners. In the last two sets, the No 20 Indian’s net game came undone after he faced a barrage that’s typical of the 29-year-old former World No 13.
