Saina beats Sindhu to get women’s singles gold at Commonwealth Games

In a match that started on equal footing, Saina managed to dominate, bringing a rarely seen aggression to the court.

The brute force of Sindhu’s smashes was something that Saina found hard to deal with. On the other hand, Sindhu found it tough to adjust to the delicate placement of strokes of Saina, who took the pace off the shuttle by attacking the net.

What also stood out was Saina’s sharper instincts to leave the returns that landed out. Sindhu struggled to control the power she put on her shots, losing at least four points for pushing the shuttle outside and trailed 6-11 at the lemon break.

Sindhu came back strongly after the break and narrowed the gap a bit but the drift-factor affected her strokeplay way more than Saina, who also seemed the more pumped up of the two, grunting quite a bit after every point won.

Saina Nehwal’s aggression and intensity quite literally wilted P V Sindhu as she picked up the women’s singles Commonwealth Games gold medal with exhilarating triumph in the final here on Sunday.