India’s badminton ace PV Sindhu on Sunday became the first Indian woman and second athlete overall to win two medals at the Olympics. Wrestler Sushil Kumar is the only other Indian to finish on the podium in the Games twice. 

Sindhu, the current World Champion defeated eighth seed Bing Jiao 21-13 21-15 to add a bronze to her silver that she had secured at the 2016 Rio Games.

Bing had defeated Sindhu nine times in their last 15 meetings. The Indian, at Tokyo, showed great skill and dominated the match throughout. The 26-year-old had come from a painful semifinal loss to world no.1 Tai Tzu Ying on Saturday. She kickstarted with a 4-0 lead early on but Bing Jiao started to engage her in rallies and waited for her to make errors.

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Wrestler Sushil Kumar is the first and only other Indian to win two Olympic medals, following up his bronze at 2008 Beijing with a silver at the London edition. He currently is jailed and faces charges of murder, abduction and criminal conspiracy related to an alleged murder of a fellow wrestler.

Bing didn’t give Sindhu pace to play her power game but the Indian soon worked her way around even as her opponent committed a few unforced errors.

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Sindhu ended another superb rally with a cross court smash and entered the interval with another down the line hit at 11-8.

The Indian stepped up the pace after the break to gather three more points and looked in total control to pocket the opening game when her opponent went wide.

After change of ends, Sindhu continued her aggressive game, egged on by coach Park Tae-Sang from the sidelines, to lead 4-1 with a cross court return.

Bing Jiao tried to change the momentum but Sindhu rode on her attacking half smashes and slices to keep her nose ahead at the interval with a three point advantage.

Bing Jiao erased the deficit quickly before a precise smash on the line helped Sindhu wrest back control. She soon restored the three point advantage with another cross court drop.

The Indian didn’t let the advantage slip and grabbed five match points with another of trademark smash and when Bing Jiao went wide, she held her head in disbelief before letting out a cry of victory.

Earlier, men’s singles player B Sai Praneeth and the men’s doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy had failed to qualify for the knockout stage.