PV Sindhu created history by becoming the first Indian woman to win two medals at the Olympics by defeating He Bingjiao of China 21-13, 21-15 in a bronze medal match on Sunday.
With this win, Sindhu became the second Indian after Sushil Kumar to win two individual Olympic medals. She won the silver medal at the last Olympics in Rio after losing in the final to Carolina Marin. Sindhu has earlier lost to World No 1. 1 Tai Tzu Ying in the last four on Saturday.
Sindhu did not miss a single game in this year's Olympics in five matches and her ten match wins at the Olympics are the most for an Indian badminton player. Saina Nehwal, the only other Indian badminton player to win a bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics and the only other Indian to win a medal at the Olympics, is second with nine.
This is India's third medal in this Olympics. Mirabai Chanu had earlier won a bronze medal in weightlifting, while Lovlina Borgohain has also been assured of a medal in boxing after reaching the semi-finals. India had won two medals in the last Rio Olympics. This is also the first time that three Indian women have won a medal in an edition of the Olympics.
Sindhu has now won a total of seven medals at the World Championships and Olympics, the joint most for a women's singles player tied with China's Zhang Ning. Apart from her two Olympic medals, Sindhu has one gold, two silver and two bronze in the world.
She is the fourth female singles player to win consecutive Olympic medals after Susie Susanti (gold in 1992 and bronze in 1996), Bang Soo-hyun (silver in 1992 and gold in 1996) and Zhang (gold in 2004 and 2008).
Sindhu had been in terrific form throughout the tournament and started with confidence to take a 4-0 lead in the opening game. She started the match early and the Chinese was playing catch-up the entire time as Sindhu led almost from start to finish.
Bingjiao leveled a couple of times in the opening game but his slow start cost him heavily. She was also going into the marathon semi-final of 79 minutes against compatriot and top seed Chen Yufei on Saturday, and that match was showing results as Bingjiao was slower than usual in her movements, while Sindhu was at her optimum attack from the start. . match.
Sindhu was also the better player in the opening game of the semi-final against Tai, before getting some costly errors at the end. She faded as the match went on, but it looked like the hat was on second head in this match as Bingjiao was terrified by Sindhu's pace of play and intense straight smashes.
The Chinese is known for her control and touch play on the net, but Sindhu did well to push her deep into the court and consistently hit her backhand as well.
Bingjiao repeatedly tried to use a crosscourt drop shot, as is the case with most of Sindhu's opponents, but her drops lacked the dip and length that Tai successfully managed to achieve in the semi-finals. As a result, Sindhu had enough time to reach the drops and come up with deep lifts or clears which often left the Chinese player out of position.
Sindhu rightly capped the win with a trademark smash on her first match point opportunity to end a straight match.