By winning her first individual gold medal at the Commonwealth Games and completing a hat-trick of medals at the competition with a victory over Michelle Li of Canada in the women's singles final in Birmingham, India's PV Sindhu took another significant step toward indelible inking of her name in the annals of badminton history. In each of Sindhu's three CWG efforts, she has now outperformed the medal colour. The talented Indian shuttler won silver in Gold Coast four years prior and bronze in women's singles at the 2014 Glasgow Games. In straight games on Monday (21-15, 21-13), the two-time Olympian defeated the 2014 Commonwealth Games champion to secure India's nineteenth podium position at Commonwealth games 2022.
Sindhu jumped right into the first game, the audience right behind her. The gold-medal match got off to an unusually lively start, and the former world champion quickly built a 4-2 lead. But the Canadian quickly recovered with back-to-back scores. When Sindhu played a down-the-line smash at the Canadian's serve at 6-6, it was clear that she wasn't at all interested in letting Michelle engage her in extended rallies.