After ‘Sindhu from Yindu’,it’s not just ‘Saina vs China’ anymore

After dropping the first set,Sindhu fought back to take the second emphatically,and went neck and neck in the third before the higher ranked Chinese nicked the deciding set by a wafer thin margin.

Local girl Jiang doesn’t play too many tournaments — which explains her ranking,but she rarely loses easy in the ones she plays,and at a seasoned 26 years is one of the toughest speed bumps that Chinese coaches throw into draws to halt opponents. Against the left-hander,Sindhu ensured that her dumping of the Olympic gold medallist wouldn’t come out looking like a flash in the pan.

Coach P Gopichand in fact believes she played better in the semis against the southpaw than her triumphing over the World No 2 earlier. “She showed class,and though she lost I’m proud of the way she played. She looks like she belongs and that win in quarters wasn’t a one-off,” he said.

Unlike on Friday,though,the conditions weren’t as difficult — the drift had scaled down,but the unseeded Sindhu had lost the opener 10-21 in no time. Yet,she hit her stride when she drew her opponent into longer rallies,trapping her into the classical left-hander’s folly — pushing Yanjiao to the back right corners and then finishing the kills at the other diagonal extremity of the left fore-court net. Sindhu’s spinning dribbles are highly evolved for one so young,but it was her patient construction of points that gave hope of some exciting matches ahead. She’s no impetuous teenager,carried away by her steep smashing,she can wait out and pounce on the chances when they come.

Tall players — and this Indian girl is a rangy 5’10” — tend to mature late,or take more time,at any rate. Both former World No 1 Danish Tine Baun and currently top-ranked Chinese Yihan Wang took time before they found their groove,and Gopi expects it to be steady for his ward too. “The height undoubtedly helps,but besides the movement,she also has to bend down as much because of her tall frame. That’s two inches more than most others of bending. Like Tine,Sindhu too will have the odd matches when she will lose,but if she can do all the running as well as she managed today,she looks promising for big games,” he says,impressed with her clever handling of the decider. But for two taps that she missed,and a couple of smashes that she sent into the net,the Indian could well have caused another shockwave.

Typically for a lofty player,Sindhu is blessed with good reach,and that showed in the match today when she matched Yanjiao’s tosses. Her defense too is aided largely by the big lunge as she bounds around the court retrieving the shuttle with her fluid reaching arms. And of course,there is the big smash. “She has shown the ability to keep those strengths intact in fast-paced rallies and her fitness was right up there,” Gopi says.

What she will need to build are her strength (injuries to tall players take irritatingly longer to mend) as well as anticipation when playing the corners,though she showed sound judgment on the lines. “Experience she’ll need to gain,and consistency too,” he adds,for Yanjiao showed great aerial deception in a drop-shot at 19-18,and some teeny nerves might have crept into Sindhu’s head then.

Her coach’s long-term advice? “She needs to develop a short-term memory about wins and losses,she can’t keep hanging onto either. And we’ll push her to go back to basics each match,” he says. Saina Nehwal should be back in the mix next month and at some stage the two will end up squaring off. But the biggest anticipation is reserved for what Sindhu might accomplish if and when she comes up against World No 1 Yihan Wang,China’s own tall tower.