Indonesian Putri Kusuma Wardani has the spunk and spark that can defuse an opponent’s self-assurance. At Tai Tzu-Ying’s farewell home tournament in Taiwan, the 23-year-old Indonesian – a clean, crisp stroke-maker with smooth striding footwork – had edged out the retiring queen of beautiful badminton with a technical take-down in the decider.
Fearless, quietly fierce, Wardani knew she belonged. In Hong Kong a week later, the Taiwanese gave up at 6-2, knowing the fight was gone from her against a tough opponent.
Wardani brought the same solidity to her World Championship quarterfinal against PV Sindhu. It’s not often that one says that Sindhu did little wrong but was bound to lose to this opponent. But that was the conclusion after Friday’s contest in Paris because Wardani could tame the big Sindhu smash. The 14-21, 21-13, 16-21 loss, in which she couldn’t parry a smash herself and sent the shuttle floating wide, ended her hopes of what would have been a sixth World Championships medal.
There are players adept at denying Sindhu the opportunity to smash altogether – Nozomi Okuhara, Akane Yamaguchi, Carolina Marin, Tai Tzu and the two technical Chinese He Bing Jiao and Chen Yufei. Even another Indonesian Gregoria Mariska Tunjung, who could overwhelm the Indian swamping her with her own shots, not giving her elevation.
Wardani though, didn’t stop herself from lifting the shuttle, it’s just that she defended cleanly against the incoming Sindhu cannonball with reflex racket-work. That sent a low-key tremor through Sindhu, who otherwise won the net battles.
Though she stayed in the hunt, and was impressive in the long rallies, Sindhu ended second-best in what seemed to be the same strategy as Wardani’s: Find depth on the strokes, push the opponent back, make her lug out the almighty stroke that travels from the back of the court and clears the net into tricky areas.
Sindhu brought the third game score to 16-17, but the nxt winner decided the match. It was a staggering round-the-head straight smash deep into Sindhu’s forehand corner, after several 25+ shot rallies and a particularly fast exchange at 13-16 that ended with the shuttle in Sindhu’s back corner.
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That round-the-head smash perhaps deflated Sindhu, and Wardani took four points on the trot. There was also a fault called on Sindhu, when her over-eager racket crossed the net – the harsh call can be debated, but it definitely took the wind out of her sails and she couldn’t reboot herself quick enough to deal with the frenzy of the endgame. A helpless look back at coach Irwansyah was a tell-tale of her perennial issue – and then Wardani sent one shuttle over her head to the back line, and the medal had vanished like a mirage.
The big picture
Sindhu’s too seasoned for straw-clutching silver linings after a gutting loss like this one, and she will know she still can fight – there’s still the All England to work for, no dearth of goals. But it left the tiniest of leaks in her game – the ending from point 17. Irwansyah would know he can solve that.
The opening was slow, like the rest of the week. On Friday, both registered a flurry of errors, though Sindhu’s early adjustment was mostly in two areas: how to defend the back-court, while trying to keep ascendancy at the net, and how to move Wardani around for she was simply moving Sindhu sideways and pinging on the far backhand flank, cramping her across the body. From 7-11 to 8-13 to 10-18, Sindhu was doomed to start 0-1 down.
Bouncing back, the Indian affected a second-game turnaround – as is her wont. She took time to get the attack whirring, but once on the offensive, she was floating and stinging like the appropriate metaphors, racing to a 10-3 lead. The defence held steady, she intercepted at the net, took control of the front court and matched Wardani in speed, even appearing superior to win the second 21-13. In the third, she overcame a 0-3 deficit, and reached 8-8 going over her opponent’s head and playing a 50-shot rally for 6-4. She even had a smash after a long exchange at 9-8, rendering the tough-side theory redundant.
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The tapping fault occurred at 9-10 and fazed her. Sindhu continued fighting, with outrageous defence, but Wardani was now battling for the net turf, sending tight-spun shots and flicks as the rallies got more intense, reminiscent of the Okuhara clash in the 2017 final. Except that Wardani doesn’t come with the reputation of an Olympic medallist. She has only recently improved, though she had inflicted a similar defeat on Sindhu, more convincing in fact, at the Sudirman Cup. That was ominous.
But at 5’8”, with an aggressive intent, the fearless Wardani, World No.9 now, doesn’t back off. Just three inches shorter than Sindhu, she has speed to match her reach and power, without the obligatory running. Indonesians come armed with strokes, and perhaps what threw Sindhu off was watching a mirror image of herself, still not the finished product, fighting right back.
There’s a reason Sindhu has lost to Wardani at the Asian Games, Sudirman Cup and now the Worlds. She burgles medals off Sindhu, like Sindhu snatches them off the Chinese. With elan. Putri Kusuma Wardani is just an uncomfortable match-up, and Sindhu couldn’t change that.
