PV Sindhu beats Top ranked Tai Tzu Ying in World Tour Finals
Guangzhou, Dec 13: Olympic silver medallist P V Sindhu finally broke her jinx against world No 1 Tai Tzu Ying with a come-from-behind win in a thriller, while Sameer Verma outclassed Indonesia's Tommy Sugiarto at the World Tour Finals here Thursday.
After six successive losses in 13 meetings, Sindhu got the better of her nemesis Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei 14-21 21-16 21-18 in a Group A match that lasted a little over an hour.
World No 14 Sameer, who qualified for the tournament at the last moment after defending his title at the Syed Modi International last month, dished out a dominating performance to beat the 10th ranked Sugiarto 21-16 21-7 in a 40-minute group B clash.
The 24-year-old Indian had lost the opening match against world no 1 and world champion Kento Momota.
Sindhu, who had finished runners-up in the last edition, gave ample display of her grit as she bounced back from a game down and erased a 6-11 deficit in the final game to record her first win over Asian Games champion Tzu Ying since the 2016 Rio Olympics.
In the 16-minute opening game, Sindhu couldn't produce the winners initially and could only consolidate on the unforced errors of her rival. Tzu Ying, on the other hand, looked as impressive as ever with her deceptive strokes and technical acumen.
Sindhu was lagging 2-6 early on. Tai extended her lead to 8-4 after Sindhu went long and wide.
A couple of good looking shots helped Sindhu to grabbed two points before she lifted one to the net.
Two delightful shot with her racquet head on both sides of the court gave Tzu Ying a 11-7 advantage at the first break.
After the breather, Tzu Ying unleashed two cross court returns on Sindhu's backhand to continue gathering points, reaching 15-8.
Sindhu grabbed the next three points before the Chinese Taipei shuttler produced a smash to break the run of points.
Tzu Ying's acute angled strokes bothered Sindhu as she reached 17-12. A lucky net chord gave another point to Tzu Ying, who also played an eye-catching behind-the-back shot to win another point.
She grabbed six game points when Sindhu went to the net and sealed the opening game as the Indian went long.
In the second game, Tzu Ying made Sindhu run around the court with her acute angled returns but made many unforced errors herself.
Sindhu jumped to 6-3 with her rival missing the lines time and again.
At 3-6, a long rally ensued which ended with Tzu Ying's incredible cross court stroke from the back of the court. A winner gave Sindhu a five-point cushion before she reached 10-4.
Tzu Ying grabbed two points before going long again, giving Sindhu a 11-6 advantage at the breather.
Tzu Ying tried to stage a comeback but Sindhu managed to extend her five-point advantage, moving to 17-12. The Taiwanese girl went long and found the net as Sindhu moved to 19-13. Tzu Ying got another point before she miscued one to hand over six game points to Sindhu.
Tzu Ying saved two before serving out as Sindhu took the match to the decider.
In the final game, Tzu Ying led 3-0 early after Sindhu went long twice. The Taiwanese's incredible touch helped her to extend it to 5-2. She caught Sindhu at the forecourt with her over-the-head cross court shot again.
Tzu Ying sent one to net and went wide again to allow Sindhu narrow down the lead but her angled strokes kept her ahead of the indian at 8-5.
Tzu Ying once again exploited the corners with her cross court returns and then Sindhu went long and this time Tzu Ying held a five-point advantage.
After the last change of ends, Sindhu made it 11-12 before Tzu Ying unleashed a body smash. But three unforced errors saw the Indian wrest back the lead, moving to 16-13 quickly.
An over-the-head cross court return took Sindhu to 17-13. The Indian added another point before going to nets. A body smash took Tzu Ying to 15-18. Sindhu reciprocated with a body blow and then a lucky net chord helped the Indian grab a four-match point advantage.
Tzu Ying caught the line by a whisker to stay alive and then Sindhu smashed wide to lose another match point. But the Taiwanese went wide again after another superb rally.
In the men's singles, Sameer, who had come into the tournament with a 1-1 head-to-head record against Sugiarto, looked comfortable the Indonesian as his sharp game made life difficult for his opponent.
The Indian lagged 1-3 and 5-6 initially but he soon wrested the lead with four straight points before entering the break at 11-7.
Sugiarto tried to stage a comeback and narrowed the deficit to 16-17 but Sameer reeled off the remaining four points to earn the bragging rights.
In the second game, Sugiarto again took a slender 5-3 advantage but the Indian stamped his authority to move from 7-6 to 16-6 with a nine-point burst, and then slammed the door on his rival with another five straight points.
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'One nation, one election' is unconstitutional and impractical: Prashant Bhushan
Nagpur, Dec 24: Lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan on Tuesday strongly opposed the idea of 'one nation, one election', calling it as "ridiculous and unconstitutional", and said holding simultaneous polls was impractical in a parliamentary democracy.
He also hailed the recent apex court judgements that gave a stay on lawsuits about reclaiming religious places, especially mosques, and 'bulldozer justice'.
Bhushan spoke at Parwana Oration 2024 organised here on the topic "Whither economic democracy in India' organised by Comrade H L Parwana Memorial Trust.
Answering reporters' query on 'one nation, one election' after his speech, he said, "It is ridiculous and unconstitutional because one cannot have simultaneous polls in parliamentary democracy for the reason that the government depends on enjoying the confidence of the majority in the House."
Two bills that lay down the mechanism to hold simultaneous elections were introduced in the Lok Sabha after a fiery debate last week.
"If there is a split in the party or if some people defect, then the government can fall and if the government falls and no other government can be formed then what will you do? Either you impose President's rule for the remaining term and if the central government falls, what do you do? You cannot impose President's rule there. Therefore, you will have to have fresh elections otherwise it is against democracy," he noted.
"Now, they are saying that fresh elections will be only for the remainder of the term. So how is that helping? You are now increasing the number of elections because now you are holding elections only for the remaining two years if say two years are left. This is totally bogus...There is no way this is practical and in my view this is totally unconstitutional," he said.
Equating 'bulldozer justice' with a lawless state of affairs where might is right, the Supreme Court last month laid down pan-India guidelines and said no property should be demolished without a prior show cause notice and the affected must be given 15 days to respond.
Recently, the apex court restrained till further directions the courts in the country from entertaining fresh lawsuits and passing any effective interim or final orders in pending ones seeking to reclaim religious places, especially mosques and dargahs (a Muslim shrine).
Speaking about it, he said, "We have seen that a few good things happened in the Supreme Court. One is the stay on all these suits about mosques being taken over for temples or being investigated as to whether there are temples below that or not."
"They (SC) have said that for the time being, these suits will not proceed. This is a very important development that has taken place," he said.
The other important decision is about ' bulldozer justice', he said.
"They have passed a very good judgement effectively putting a stay on it. They have also passed many judgements regarding the misuse of powers of the Enforcement directorate. ED has become the main instrument of harassing opposition leaders or activists, journalists, etc, wherein anything can be said to be money laundering and therefore ED gets into anything, whatsoever," he said.
Fortunately, in the recent last few months, there have been a number of judgements which have put brakes on the power of the ED, he added.
On a query about Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's statement that 18 per cent GST will be imposed on the margin value of used car sales, Bhushan said it should be scrapped.
"I don't know whether she misunderstood what the scheme is and if this is the scheme it will have to go. It will also struck down in the court," he said.
When asked about Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis' statement that pro-urban Naxal organisations supported the 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' of Rahul Gandhi, Bhushan said, "That is all absolutely bunk. I mean they call any dissenter urban Naxalite..."
Addressing the gathering earlier, Bhushan called for the need to understand the difference between 'economic democracy' and 'political democracy'.
Economic inequality has increased so much that 10 to 20 families of this country own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent people of this country together, he claimed.
"We say that we have political democracy, but is the system in the country is run by the opinion of the people?" he asked.
A lot could have been done to reduce the economic inequality by implementing progressive tax, which means that tax will increase as the income increases. Maximum personal income tax in India is around 35 per cent, which is less than most of the other countries that are regarded as capitalist countries, he said.
Secondly, progressive wealth tax could have been implemented be it one, two or three percent, but we did not apply wealth tax, he said.
Bhushan made a pitch for inheritance tax, and said corporate tax has decreased in the country in the recent past.
The government should ensure that a person lives a dignified life with basic food, education, health care and shelter, he said.
