Tokyo Olympics: PV Sindhu one win away from medal round after beating Mia Blichfeldt

India's PV Sindhu advanced to the quarterfinal of the badminton singles event at the Tokyo Olympics after beating Mia Blichfeldt in the Round of 16 clash on Thursday. The Indian won the match 21-15, 21-13 and is just one win away from entering the medal round . The shuttler from Hyderabad, who is seeded sixth at the event, had defeated Ksenia Polikarpova of Israel in her opening match before overcoming  Hong Kong's Cheung Ngan Yi in her previous match.

PV Sindhu enters quarterfinal

Just like the first two matches, Sindhu dominated her opponent despite trailing 0-2 at the start of the match. At the mid-game interval, the Indian shuttler had taken 11-6 lead, however, Mia fought back to reduce the deficit to one point. However, Sindhu used all her experience and did not allow her opponent to either tie the score or take the lead in the first set. She went onto win the first set 21-15.

The second set was one-way traffic as Sindhu raced to a five-point lead against Blichfeldt. The Indian shuttler was in no mood to give away easy points as she extended her lead to a six-point lead. The Danish player did try to cut the deficit by claiming 3 points but her opponent kept widening the gap with four points. AT the interval Sindhu had control of the match leading 11-6. Mia once again did try to make a comeback as she continued to take away points from Sindhu. The Indian however increased the lead before claiming the second set 21-13 and with that the match as well. 

This Olympics will be a chance for Sindhu to finally upgrade her Silver Medal to gold with defending champion Carolina Marin not being part of the event. In the 2016 edition of the quadrennial event, Sindhu reached the final before going down to Spain's Carolina Marin in the gold medal match.  

Sindhu is also country's final hope to win a medal in the badminton event at the ongoing Tokyo Olympics. The challenge in the men's singles event ended with Sai Praneet being knocked out in the league stage. On Tuesday, the men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Ranikreddy and Chirag Shetty also crashed out despite winning their final group game 21-17,21-19 against the British pair of Ben Lane and Sean Vendy.

Image: AP