BWF World Championships 2026: PV Sindhu loses to China’s Wang Zhi Yi

PV Sindhu loses 21-11, 19-21, 21-17 to China’s Wang Zhi Yi at the World Championships in New Delhi

The defeat ends Sindhu’s 8-0 record against Chinese shuttlers at the World Championships

The loss also ends Sindhu’s pursuit of a sixth World Championship medal in front of her home crowd

The first game was a tale of two halves. Before the mid-game break, neither shuttler gave away an easy point. Wang made Sindhu work hard on her drops, while Sindhu gave Wang no room to land a clean smash

Wang led 11-8 at the break, but after it, Sindhu made six unforced errors and one misjudgement, and lost the game 21-11. It was clear she needed to raise her game, and she did

Sindhu mixed smashes, dribbles and net drops to repeatedly catch Wang out at the front court, but errors kept the game level at 15-15. She then took six straight points to close out the game 21-15

In the third game, Sindhu had held her lead till 15-13, with a raucous Delhi crowd behind her. But at 17-16, Wang suffered a hard fall and called for a medical break

After it, Sindhu managed only one more point as Wang raced away with the win

With Sindhu’s loss to Wang, and Ayush Shetty’s loss to Alwi Farhan of Indonesia, 21-19, 21-11, India’s challenge in the singles categories is over at the World Championships

Sindhu said that she was disappointed and sad after the match and felt she should have converted the close contest