All England Championships: Akane Yamaguchi beats PV Sindhu in thrilling semis clash
Birmingham: Rio Olympics silver-medallist PV Sindhu lost against Japan's Akane Yamaguchi in women's singles semi-final match of All England Badminton Championships on Saturday.
After winning the opening game 21-19, Sindhu lost the second game 19-21 against Akane Yamaguchi.
The Japanese shuttler defeated Sindhu 19-21, 21-19, 21-18 to book her berth for the final where she will take on World No. 1 Tai Tzu Ying.
On Thursday, the fourth-seed produced a spirited performance as she bounced back from a game down to register a 20-22, 21-18, 21-18 win over 2016 champion Nozomi Okuhara of Japan in a nail-biting quarter-final clash that lasted an hour and 24 minutes here at the Arena Birmingham.
With the win, Sindhu had clinched her fifth victory over the world number six Japanese, who had also robbed the former of a gold medal at the World Championship in Glasgow.
It should be noted that Sindhu is the lone Indian shuttler left in the tournament after HS Prannoy missed by a whisker from making it to the last-four of the men's singles event.
After comfortably winning the first set, Prannoy failed to capitalise on the same and slumped to a 22-20, 16-21, 21-23 defeat at the hands of China's Yuxiang Huang to knock out of the tournament.
