Tokyo:Reigning world champion P V Sindhu suffered a straight-game defeat against world no 1 Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei in the women's singles semifinals, here on Saturday.
The 26-year-old Sindhu was ahead for the first quarter of the match but Tai’s variety of deception and skills gave her 21-18, 21-12 victory in 40 minutes.
With this win, Tai also extended her head-to-head lead against the Indian to 14-5. Tai will now clash with top seed Chen Yu Fei in the gold medal match.
However, Rio Olympics silver-medallist Sindhu remained in the hunt for a bronze and will be competing against China's No. 8 seed He Bing Jiao in the third place play-off at Musashino Forest Sport Plaza on Sunday.
On Friday, Sindhu had stormed into the women's singles semifinals after a thrilling win over Japan's Akane Yamaguchi.
Sindhu had won a silver medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016 after she went down to Spain's Carolina Marin in the final.
Since then, the ace Indian shuttler has won the World Championships gold in 2019, and also won silver medals at the World Championships in 2017 and 2018. She also won the silver medal at the 2018 Asian Games and 2018 Commonwealth Games.(UNI)