Two-time defending champion P V Sindhu completed a hat-trick of women’s singles title at the USD 120,000 Macau Open Grand Prix Gold after defeating Japan’s Minatsu Mitani in the finals here on Sunday.
Sindhu produced a dominating game to notch up a 21-9 21-23 21-14 win against sixth seed Mitani in a women’s singles match that lasted an hour and six minutes here.
World No. 12 Indian dished out some superb strokes and acute angled returns to bamboozle the Japanese, besides making some sound judgements at the baseline to get across Mitani, who struggled to keep the shuttle inside the court.
Dominates proceedings
Sindhu dominated the proceedings right from the start as she rode on the errors of Mitani to reach 11-5 at the break.
Mitani came up with an aggressive rally and sealed it with a down the line smash but she failed to curb her errors and most of her returns went wide and long to allow Sindhu to take a 17-6 lead in a jiffy.
Sindhu, on the other hand, was mostly accurate with her smashes and drops as she led 19-9. The Indian came up with some acute angled returns to trouble Mitani and reached the game point with a smash. The Japanese then went wide to hand over the first game to Sindhu.
After the change of sides, Sindhu once again started on a confident note but she also began missing the lines. Sindhu made a few wrong judgements at the baseline and also found the net to allow Mitani to surge ahead, before eventually going neck and neck.
Sindhu did go on to have a few match points, but Mitani held firm to win the game.
Big lead
Mitani continued to struggle with her line judgements and returns in the third game to allow Sindhu establish a big lead.
Sindhu grabbed six of eight points during one stage and went into the match point at 20-11.
The Japanese saved three match points but a composed Sindhu didn’t panic and waited for Mitani’s error and she soon send the shuttle wide again to help Sindhu complete her hat trick of titles.PTI
