Hong Kong Open | PV Sindhu goes down fighting against Tai Tzu Ying in final

In the opening game, Tai raced to a 3-0 lead early on before Sindhu made a good judgment at the baseline to level things up, but the former unleashed her wide repertoire of strokes afterward and varied the pace well to take a lead at 7-2. Sindhu then started to dominate the rallies through her wonderful court coverage and forced the Taiwanese to play her game close to the net and in the process reduced the deficit to 6-7. However, the World No.1 took a step forward and produced a smash on the deep backhand corner of Sindhu and moved to 10-7 and went into the mid-game interval with a three-point advantage.

Although Sindhu was attacking in her style of play and didn’t allow her opponent to dominate the game completely, Tai’s plans of keeping at least a three-point lead intact restricted Sindhu to take a lead in the game. Although the Hyderabadi reduced the margin to 10-13, Tai quickly recovered from that to extend her domination to 18-14. However, Sindhu, using her backhand shots and court coverage to good effect, clawed back into the game at 18-18. But Tai unleashed two back-to-back smashes and after winning a video referral when her shuttle landed on the line, she sealed the first game 21-18.

However, Tai dominated the proceedings after the interval, despite Sindhu trying hard to force the game to the decider. At 13-12, Sindhu was not allowed a video referral by the line judge and after that, the match was slowly slipping away from the Indian when Tai produced a stroke on Sindhu's forehand to perfection. With the Indian failing to finish the rallies, it allowed the World No.1 to secure a lead at 17-12. Although the Indian produced a cross-court smash to break the rhythm, she again hit long as Tai earned the match point at 20-16. Although Sindhu saved two match points, a perfect drop shot from Tai sealed the title for the Taiwan shuttler.