PV Sindhu after entering All England quarters: I need to improve

PV Sindhu had to fight hard to beat Thailand's Nitchaon Jindapol

Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu progressed to the quarter-finals of the All England Championships with a hard-fought win over Thailand's Nitchaon Jindapol in women's singles here yesterday. The World No. 3 Indian recovered from a mid-match slump to overcome the Thai shuttler 21-13, 13-21, 21-18 in a match which lasted an hour and seven minutes. "I definitely need to improve. I am happy to pull off a tough match. I hope I would go back, recover and return stronger tomorrow. I am not thinking too much about the tournament. "Most probably, it would be (Nozomi) Okuhura or the Indonesian, so let's see who I play," Sindhu said after the match.

'Difficult match'
"She is not an easy player. She gave away easy points initially and after winning the first game, it was not easy as there were long rallies. She has got good strokes," Sindhu added. Coming into the contest, Sindhu had a 2-1 head-to-head record against Jindapol, who is enjoying a career-best rank of 11.

In the first game, the duo split the initial six points before Sindhu jumped to a 7-3 lead after winning a long rally. After the breather, Sindhu moved to a 15-7 lead and kept piling on the misery on the Thai who kept hitting the net and wide to bleed points. A body smash took Jindapol to double figures but she couldn't go far as Sindhu grabbed a massive game point advantage with a deceptive return at 20-13. Jindapol then hit long to hand the game to the Indian.
In the second game, Jindapol seemed more attacking in her approach.

Lucky Jindapol
Jindapol enjoyed a lucky net chord and Sindhu sent one long as the Thai shuttler lead 17-10 with another superb return. A bad judgement and two successive wide shots from Sindhu gave Jindapol seven game points and she sealed it with a smash to roar back into the contest. Sindhu looked more focused in the decider held on to win the tie. "Till the last point, I fought and finally won 21-18. I was just thinking about the next point as I was trailing and I had to remain focussed on each point. I could have played more patiently in the decider when I was 12-16. I made too many unforced errors there."

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