Asian Games 2018: PV Sindhu agitated after surviving scare

PV Sindhu during her match against Vietnamu00c3u0083u00c2u00a2u00c3u0082u00c2u0080u00c3u0082u00c2u0099s Vu Thi Trang in Jakarta yesterday. Pic/PTI

Rarely is India's star shuttler PV Sindhu seen in an agitated state on and off the court. But yesterday, she was livid because some poor refereeing almost saw her make, what would have been an embarrassing first round exit in the women's singles event here. Sindhu was stretched to three games before beating Vietnam's Vu Thi Trang 21-10, 12-21, 23-21.

The No. 3 seed struggled to get a measure of the court more often than not, hitting the shuttle wide despite there being no pressure from World No. 52 Vu early on in the match. Later, her errors came back to haunt her when the referees called a couple of very close calls long, leaving Sindhu livid. "That was on the line," she kept telling the chair umpire even as she turned to chief coach Pullela Gopichand, who simply put his finger to his lip asking her to keep quiet and continue playing.

Later, Sindhu admitted she had lost it a bit out there on court. "I'm p''sed off because those shots were in, especially the second one. These things [poor line calls] can change the fate of a match instantly. If I get a bad call and then she gets a lucky net cord thereafter, I lose two straight points. In close games like these, that's bad. I could have lost this one today," she said, adding that she was struggling with the drift factor too.

"I made quite a few unforced errors because it was bit difficult to control the shuttle at times due to the drift. Vu also played really well. Full credit to her, she was returning almost everything and that made it difficult for me," added the Rio Olympics silver medal-winning shuttler.

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