Congrats to Sindhu.. She played good.. Opponent was still a notch above her..Carolina Marin trains with all men players as back home not many good women players are there.. Similarly here Sindhu under the eyes of Gopichand (oh yes Gopi sir academy in gachibowli) will become much better as a player with more such experience and better pressure handling abilities...
One small thing i noticed is that the wishes and expectations of 1.25 Billion Indians and all media carrying wishes with government , big personalities of all fields and everybody wishing actually creates a massive pressure cooker scenario. I guess this played on her mind.. Even best players like Sachin or Kohli or Bindra felt the expectation burden a lot at times.
If you really see Sindhu's game today, the pressure was telling at many points of the game.. Carolina was trying to dictate the pace of the game after her 1st set fiasco by keeping Rallies short and always trying to find openings to play a smooth drop shot and catch Sindhu awkward. Sindhu otoh was very good on rallys.. Cross the rally over 20 shots and Carolina fumbles..
Both sides made lots of errors.. Especially Sindhu which was a bit sad for us as she played very very good to reach finals and fought her way through the first set inspite of those errors. Sindhu's height makes her look at her left court judgement a bit weak especially with Marin using Angular push and drop shots and that was exploited by Carolina so full marks on that. Carolina if her rhythm gets disturbed during long volleys fail a lot with her own wrong shot power selection, this was exploited by Sindhu but not consistently. in the end it was all about handling pressure and a game of nerves and experience.
Notice small points like continuous self talk by Marin, constantly asking for shuttle change, towel time or trying to clean court.. all to disturb opponent pace, rhythm and use every extra second of rest to recharge her battery.. now thats a very very smart way of playing .. ruthless but than all under fair play rules.. Sindhu should learn it also as she kept complaining to the Umpire from Australia and Marin got warnings but these tactics are like Mind Games..Only the strong minds prevail..
Overall a fitting final of over 1 hour plus pure classic badminton... Loved it...
I hope to see more such games of Sindhu in future..
@dadeechi : Bro, if i get diabetes i am saying in front of all PDF folks, i will hold you responsible.. You actually make me crave for sweets with your tempting mithai pictures.. Those jalebis of the other day post, i still remember and how i hogged next day 500 gms all by myself shows up in my weighing scale...
But yes today everyone deserve a sweet.. Hope more daughters of our Country take up sports and bring laurels to our country....
