India ace badminton star, two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu crashed out of the Malaysia Super 750 badminton in the quarter-final stage, after losing her singles match against Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei.
Sindhu squandered a game lead, and bowed out of the tournament on Friday, after a hard-fought defeat, which ended 13-21 21-15 21-13.
The seventh seed Sindhu finished second best to the second seed Tai Tzu, a silver medallist at the Tokyo Olympics.
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By virtue of the win, the Chinese Taipei shuttler extended her domination over the Indian ace, leading 16-5 on head-to-head record. Sindhu has now lost six matches on the trot against Tai Tzu.
Sindhu, playing against drift, made a slow start and trailed 2-5 in the opening game. But she soon got her act together and pocketed 11 points on the trot to go into the break leading 11-7.
The Chinese Taipei shuttler tried to make comeback into the contest by playing long rallies but Sindhu was upto the task to pocket the opening game.
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Sindhu started the second game brightly but her fancied rival dominated the proceedings after the early exchanges to lead 11-3 at the break.
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Tai Tzu continued in the same vein after the change of ends and extended her lead to 14-3 before Sindhu relied on her powerful smashes to reduce the deficit to 17-15.
Tai Tzu, however, regrouped quickly and pocketed the next four points to draw level in the contest.
It was a close contest in the decider as both the shuttlers fought tooth and nail till 12 points before Tai Tzu put Sindhu under pressure with a mix of drop shots and smashes to clinch the third game and keep her title defence hopes alive.
With inputs from PTI
