PV Sindhu’s wait for her maiden final appearance of the ongoing season continued as she lost to world champion Akane Yamaguchi in the semi-finals of the Australian Badminton Open 2026 in Sydney on Saturday.
PV Sindhu, 10th in the women’s singles badminton rankings, lost to world No. 3 Yamaguchi 22-20, 21-12 in 43 minutes to bow out of the BWF Super 500 tournament.
This was the Indian badminton player’s second semi-final appearance on the 2026 BWF World Tour. She also made the top four at the Malaysia Open Super 1000 back in January but lost to the People’s Republic of China’s Wang Zhiyi on that occasion.
Sindhu’s last BWF World Tour title came at the Syed Modi International in Lucknow back in 2024.
The opening game saw Sindhu, who had memorably beaten Yamaguchi in the Tokyo 2020 quarter-finals en route to securing her second Olympic medal, take the early initiative and hold a narrow two-point lead at the mid-game interval.
Following the restart, peak badminton drama ensued. First, it was Yamaguchu who picked up six points on the trot to go ahead by 15-11. The Indian shuttler, though, matched her Japanese opponent to wrestle back her two-point advantage again.
The game eventually went right down to the wire. Sindhu saved a match point at 20-19 but eventually went down.
After a close start to the second game, Yamaguchi picked up seven unanswered points to take a 13-6 lead and pressed the advantage to complete what was her 14th win over her Indian rival in 29 meetings.
Sindhu’s loss also drew the curtains on India’s challenge at the Australian Badminton Open.
India’s challenge in the men’s doubles events had come to an end on Friday after MR Arjun and Hariharan Amsakarunan retired from their quarter-final against Chinese Taipei’s Chen Cheng Kuan and Liu Kuang-Heng.
None of the Indian men’s singles players in action made it past the opening round.
Indian shuttlers will be next seen in action at the Macau Open Super 300 tournament which starts next week.
READ MORE: https://www.olympics.com/en/news/australian-badminton-open-2026-semi-final-report
