Defending world champion PV Sindhu of India has been eliminated from the All England Championship 2020. Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara defeated Sindhu 12-21 21-15 21-13 in the 68-minute quarter-final. India’s campaign in this Super 1000 tournament also ended with the defeat of Sindhu.
Before this match, Sindhu’s record at Okuhara was 9-7. He defeated this Japanese player in the final of the World Championship 2019. With this, Okuhara equalized that loss.
24-year-old PV Sindhu started to lead 3–0 in the first game and took it to 7–2. Okuhara tried to narrow the gap to 5-8, but Sindhu held a five-point lead until the break and soon won it 21-12 by Okuhara’s mistake.
Okuhara then tried to put Sindhu on the backfoot and took a 5-2 lead and then made it 7-3, forcing the Indian to make mistakes with sharp rallies. However, Sindhu took advantage of Okuhara’s unforced mistakes and narrowed the gap to 8-10.
The Japanese player maintained a three point lead until the break. Sindhu could not create a rhythm in the rallies after that and Okuhara took a 16–9 lead to make it 21–15 and equalize 1–1. Okuhara continued his dominance in the decider game, where he started 5–2.
The Japanese player did not give Sindhu a chance to be aggressive and took an 11-5 lead until the break. The period of mistakes continued for the Indian and Okuhara led 19-11. In the end, the Japanese player collected seven match points to enter the semi-finals.
