Thailand Open: PV Sindhu loses to Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon in quarter-finals, crashes out

India’s PV Sindhu suffered a straight games loss to Thailand star Ratchanok Intanon and crashed out of the event on Friday. With her loss, the Indian singles challenge came to an end in the tournament.

The Thailand star and former World Champion Intanon was too good for Sindhu on the day and stormed into the semi-final with a comfortable 21-13, 21-9 win.

The only point where Sindhu seemed to be in the game was for a little while was in the first set when she won a few consecutive points and levelled the game at 13-all. But just then Intanon upped her game and won eight consecutive points to win the set 21-13.

In the second set, Intanon took an early lead and Sindhu never quite seemed to be in the game. She went on to win the set by over 10 points. Intanon will now



play the top seed Tai Tzu Ying in the last-four clash.

Sindhu had defeated Malaysia’s Kisona Selvaduray 21-10, 21-12 in her second round match just a day earlier.

In other matches on Friday, Day 4 started well for the Indian contingent with the world No. 36 pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa beating Olympic silver medalists and fifth seeds Chan Peng Soon and Goh Liu Ying to advance to the semifinals.

India’s Sameer Verma, however, crashed out after losing 13-21, 21-19, 20-22 to Denmark's Anders Antonsen in the quarter-finals on Friday.

Sameer made a terrific comeback after losing the first set by 13-21 and won the second set by 21-19. However, Anders Antonsen edged out Sameer in the final set and won the game to advance to the semi-finals.