MANILA — Top seed Akane Yamaguchi battled
back to reach the Badminton Asia Championships final with a controversial win
over Indian rival P.V. Sindhu on Saturday.
اضافة اعلان
Japan’s Yamaguchi will be favorite to retain her
women’s singles crown when she faces
China’s unseeded Wang Zhiyi in the title
decider on Sunday in Manila.
Fourth-seeded Sindhu claimed the first game of her
semi-final against the reigning world champion 21–13 and was leading 14–11 in
the second when the umpire ruled that the Indian player was taking too long to
serve.
A clearly unhappy Sindhu, an
Olympic silver and
bronze medalist, argued her case with the officials but to no avail and she
conceded a point penalty to her opponent.
She appeared to lose her focus and rhythm after
that, allowing Yamaguchi to come back to claim the second game 21–19 and the
deciding third 21–16.
“That was one of the reasons I lost, that’s my
feeling. At that point it was 14–11 and you never know, it would have been
15–11,” Sindhu said of the umpiring decision which proved to be a turning point
in the match.
Wang, the world number 16, booked her place in the
final with a shock 10–21, 21–12, 21–16 victory over South Korea’s second seed
An Se-young.
The men’s final will be between Malaysia’s Lee Zii
Jia and Jonatan Christie of Indonesia.
Third-seeded Lee swatted aside China’s unseeded Weng
Hongyang in ruthless fashion with a 21–11, 21–19 win in 39 minutes.
In contrast, fourth seed Christie was pushed to three games
by his fellow Indonesian Chico Aura Dwi Wardoyo before prevailing 21–9, 18–21,
21–16 in just under an hour.
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