New Delhi: India ace shuttler P.V. Sindhu has qualified for the BWF World Tour Finals, the Badminton World Federation confirmed on Wednesday.
The World Tour Finals will take place in Hangzhou, China, from December 9-13. Her familiar foes, An Se Young, Akane Yamaguchi, Wang Zhi Yi and Chen Yu Fei, are others to qualify for the year-ender tournament.
Held during non-Thomas Cup years, the tournament invited the top eight players/pairs on the year-end world rankings. With five women’s singles players confirmed – Japan’s Tomoka Miyazaki, Nozomi Okhuhara, Ratchanok Intanon and Putri Kusuma Wardani (Indonesia), Thailand’s Pornpawee Chochuwong and Denmark’s Line Christophersen – are the other shutters in the race for the three remaining spots.
This will be Sindhu’s sixth career appearance in the World Tour Finals and her first since 2021. She had qualified for 2022 but withdrew due to an injury. She is the only Indian to win a BWF World Tour Finals women’s singles title when she defeated Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara in 2018.
The 2019 world champion’s recent Hylo Open title win proved significant in Sindhu qualifying for the season-ending BWF World Tour Finals. The Super 500 title added 9,200 points to her tally, which took her two spots up to sixth in the latest update of the BWF World Rankings.
Hylo Open crown was Sindhu’s second title on tour this year after the Japan Open Super 750 in July, which was her first individual crown since December 2024. Overall, she now has seven BWF World Tour titles to her name. She had also played the final at the French Open before the Hylo Open but lost to world No. 1 and reigning Olympic and World champion An Se-young of Korea.
This is the first season since 2022 in which Sindhu has won multiple BWF World Tour titles.
Days after her Hylo Open title run, Sindhu decided to skip the Korea Open and Japan Masters to relax and get fit for the BWF World Tour Final.
(IANS)
