PV Sindhu’s biggest nemesis in recent times, especially in closely fought battles, has been her poor judgment at the back line.
At the 2025 BWF World Championships quarter-finals, it would come to haunt her as she left a shuttle, which landed well inside to hand Putri Kusuma Wardani a 19-16 lead in the decider.
It wasn’t a decisive blow by any means, but instead the result of relentless pressure mounted by the teenage Indonesian.
Unlike some of the sport’s legends, who found the best way to nerf Sindhu is to take her attacking game out of the equation, Wardani took it head-on.
The 17-year-old wasn’t afraid to lift the shuttle to Sindhu’s attacking arc whilst keeping her defence water-tight.
Sindhu was drawn into long rallies, quite a few of them which she actually won, but eventually ran out of fuel against an opponent 13 years her junior.
There wasn’t a lot the former world champion did wrong against Wardani. Despite surrendering the first game 14-21 after a tentative display, she fought back to win the second game 21-13 and forced a decider.
It was in the second game that Sindhu actually settled into her rhythm, testing Wardani’s endurance with shots all across the court.
Some nervy shots from the Indonesian, along with the drift meant that Sindhu was in cruise control throughout.
The decider was as much a battle of willpower as it was of outlasting the opponents.
The rallies kept getting longer and longer as the game progressed, yet Sindhu kept in touch 9-11 before the change of ends.
Having found the way to succeed from the far end with a flurry of points late in the second game, Wardani was better prepared to counter the drift this time.
She effortlessly pushed Sindhu all around the court. The Indian veteran was made to run around – shots from the net returned to the backline, forcing her to back track, becoming a constant feature.
A fault called against Sindhu for crossing the net with her racquet during the first phase of the decider did not help her case either.
Sindhu kept fighting for her life in a bid for a record sixth medal, but once the misjudged shuttle landed inside the backline, she knew it was the final nail in the coffin.
A push into the net was followed by a shot that landed long at the backhand corner as Wardani sank to her knees.
On a day Akane Yamaguchi and Chen Yufei equalled her record of five BWF World C’ships medals jointly held by Zhang Ning, a dejected Sindhu stared at coach Irwansyah Adi Pratama. The sixth medal has to wait for now.
But with the week she has had in Paris, the diminishing hopes for PV Sindhu have once again reignited.
