Gold Medallist India's Venkata Sindhu Pusarla celebrates on the podium during the medal ceremony. Reuters

Gulf Today Report

World number seven PV Sindhu won the women's singles at the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham. With this medal she took another giant step towards the badminton history books by winning her first Commonwealth Games individual gold.

Her victory in the Women's singles badminton at the Commonwealth took her to completing a hat-trick of medals at the Games with a win over Michelle Li of Canada in the women's singles final in Birmingham.

Sindhu, a two-time Olympic medallist and a former world champion, spoke to NDTV after her win and said that she was really happy to have won the gold medal.

With the crowd right behind her, Sindhu started the first game aggressively. The former world champion, who was a bit unusually animated right from the beginning of the gold-medal match, helped herself to a 4-2 lead. The Canadian, however, made a quick comeback with back-to-back points. That Sindhu wasn't at all interested in letting Michelle engage her in long rallies was evident when she played a down-the-line smash at the Canadian's serve at 6-6.

Sindhu was on a roll after getting to double figures. She won six straight points to make 15-8 and run away with a lead that was always going to be extremely difficult for anyone let alone Michell to cover. The Canadian world number 13, tried her best to make a comeback with a couple of nifty manoeuvres that had served her well in the semi-final against Scotland, but at 17-14 in her favour, Sindhu found an outrageous angle off her backhand to douse all of Michelle's hopes. Sindhu won the first game 21-15.