PV Sindhu’s China Open Super 1000 campaign ended in heartbreak on Thursday. She let slip four match points and lost 21-16, 20-22, 18-21 to China’s Chen Yufei in a match that had at least three different endings before the real one arrived.
Victory was there for the taking, more than once. Two line calls went Chen’s way instead of Sindhu’s, and by the closing stages Sindhu’s smashes had lost their sting shot after shot went straight into the net.
It’s worth remembering this came just a week after Sindhu won the Japan Open. This was her seventh match in ten days, and the legs finally said something about it. She was serving for the match. She had the Olympic champion cornered. She led 15-13 in the decider. None of it was enough.
Her attack was still working through most of the third game, but Chen had gotten her groove back after taking the second, and that self-belief ended up carrying her through. As Sindhu’s smashes slowed down, Chen simply pushed her deeper and deeper into the court until the errors came.
This is becoming a pattern for Sindhu get to the edge of winning, then can’t quite finish it. Coach Irwansyah is still trying to rebuild the consistency she had back in 2019, and this match is exactly the kind of moment that shows the gap hasn’t closed yet.
Game one: down 6-12, wins 15 of the last 19
The first game had two halves. Sindhu was down 6-12 to the World No. 4 heading into the mid-game break, and whatever Irwansyah told her at that changeover worked. She came back out and stopped chasing winners, instead working Chen side to side with cross-court angles until Chen was twisting to reach shots she shouldn’t have had to reach.
The pressure got to Chen. Her wide smashes started missing. Her deep returns started missing. Then came the rally that changed the match 44 shots, both players throwing full-length dives at the shuttle, until Chen went chasing one that was clearly heading out. Sindhu ended it with a body smash. 15-14.
After that, it was mostly one-way traffic. Chen kept giving points away, Sindhu tied it at 16-16, won the next point when Chen’s challenge on a line call failed, and finished the game winning 15 of the last 19 points. A smash into open court made it four set points at 20-16, and a soft drop shot closed it out — not the finish anyone would have guessed at 6-12.
Game two: led from point one, lost from 20
Game two flipped the script entirely. Sindhu led from the very first point this time, built a big cushion, and still couldn’t get it done.
She opened aggressively body smashes had her up 5-2 then kept the pressure on: a shoulder smash made it 10-7, another heavy winner made it 11-7, a sharp net shot held her lead at 14-11. Chen fought back to 16-18, but Sindhu pushed on to 20-16. One point from the match.
Then Chen dug up something remarkable. A 37-shot rally that had no business ending in her favor somehow did, finished off by a reflex winner from a position she had no right to hit from. That single point seemed to unlock her. Six straight points followed. Somewhere in that run, Sindhu let a shuttle go, sure it was sailing long it landed in. Legs tired, judgment slipping, whatever it was, the match had turned, and Chen wasn’t letting it turn back. She closed out the third game and the win.