Rio Olympics: Shuttler Sindhu enters women’s singles quarters

Rio de Janeiro, Aug 16 (IANS) Star shuttler P.V. Sindhu entered the quarter-finals of the women's singles event at the on going Rio Olympics by defeating Tai Tzu-ying of Chinese Taipei in straight games here.

Sindhu dominated right from the start to defeat her highly rated opponent 21-13, 21-15 within 40 minutes in the pre-quarterfinal clash at Court 2 of the Riocentro Pavilion 4 on Monday.

Before Monday's match, Tzu-ying enjoyed a 4-2 advantage in head to head encounters against Sindhu. But the 21-year-old from Hyderabad was in superb form and dominated her opponent throughout the match.

But Sindhu is expected to face a much tougher challenge in last eight stage as she will now face World No.2 Wang Yihan of China.

The opening game witnessed long rallies with Sindhu forcing the early advantage thanks to her powerful smashes and unforced errors by Tzu-ying.

Tzu-ying gave Sindhu a tough fight in the early stages. Despite conceding the lead on several occasions, she drew level every time before the Indian forced a 11-6 lead by the mid-game break.

The Taiwan shuttler continued to fight hard with her deceptive drop shots and cross court smashes causing problems for Sindhu.

Sindhu seemed to lose her rhythm a bit after the break as Tzu-ying reduced her lead to 12-10.

But the Indian soon recovered to bolster her lead to 19-13 before a couple of unforced errors handed her the first game.

Sindhu forced the early advantage in the second game as well with Tzu-ying continuing to fight hard.

Tzu-ying was troubled by the draft in the second game which saw her conceded a couple of unforced and allowed Sindhu to take a 6-3 lead.

But to her credit, the Taiwan shuttler took three points on the trot to draw level.

But a powerful forehand smash by Sindhu and more unforced errors by Tzu-ying enabled the Hyderabad girl to score five consecutive points and open up an 11-6 lead at the break.

Sindhu kept up the pressure after the break with four back to back points increasing her lead to 15-7.

Tzu-ying rallied to reduce the Indian's lead to 15-11 before she committed two unforced errors to lose the momentum.

With Sindhu serving for the match at 20-12, Tzu-ying managed to save three match points and pull back to 20-15. But Sindhu did have to wait long to celebrate as another unforced error by Tzu-ying handed her the game and the match.