Olympic medallist PV Sindhu was defeated by second seed An Seyoung of South Korea in the semi-final of the Korea Open Badminton Championships 2022 at the Palma Stadium on Saturday.

Right from the start, Seyoung, the world’s number 4 South Korean shuttler, took a strong lead of 3-0 without letting Sindhu take over. Seyoung easily won the game by a margin of 21-14.

The second game started off in a similar way, with Sindhu’s opponent taking a lead of 5-3. The game briefly appeared nail-biting until 9-9, but Seyoung scored four points with composure, which helped her take a 13-9 lead. Sindhu finally lost the second match at a score of 17-21. 

In 49 minutes, Sindhu lost the semi-final 14-21 17-21.

20-year-old Seyoung left Sindhu trying to catch up from the start, by displaying her strong precision and athleticism. 

Also Read: All England Open: Lakshya Sen makes history, beats Lee Zii Jia to reach final

Hitting her last smash, Seyoung sat down on her knees as she won.

Reacting to Sindhu’s defeat, the official Twitter handle of Badminton Association of India said that it simply wasn’t “our day”.

“Not our day, comeback stronger!” the tweet read. 

The two-time Olympic medallist had won her quarter-final match against Thailand’s Busanan Ongbamrungphan in the Swiss Open Champions with a score of 21-10 21-16. 

Also Read: Swiss Open: HS Prannoy goes down to Jonatan Christie in the men’s singles final

On Thursday, PV Sindhu bagged a spot for herself in the quarterfinals of the tournament by defeating Japan’s Aya Ohori. Sindhu won the game comfortably with a tally of 21-15 21-10.

Meanwhile, India bit the dust when women’s doubles team, Ashwini and Sikki lost in the quarter-final with a score of 19-21, 17-21. 

The country’s eyes and hopes now lie on shuttler Kidambi Srikanth who is set for a semi-final match against Indonesia’s Jonatan Christie. The match is scheduled to start at 10:30 am IST.