Sindhu was born for television. She was born to capture eyeballs on a day-to-day basis. It will escape the dour medal-counters of Indian sport just how precious her value is, to sport’s biggest metric: capturing eyeballs. She adds a zing of natural theatrics to every game she plays, and her pivots are among the most prominent of pivots at any tournament. India’s P.V. Sindhu beat China’s He Bingjiao to reach the semi-finals of the Badminton Asian Championship in Manila. The inflection-point in the quarterfinals came at 16-14 in the decider, not 16-15 as China claimed. The former world number one raced into a huge lead in the second and took it 21-9 in the third to set up a dramatic decider.

The chair umpire had been kept busy by the duo with challenges as the shuttle straggled along the tramlines like a tipsy trundler at 3-2 early in the game. Bingjiao Bingjiao’s floating return landed on the sideline, bringing her to two points within Sindhu’s score. The challenge was more of a water-sipper break than anything with conviction because the shuttle dropped within inches of her. At the start of that rally, the score on the adjacent court with another women’s singles quarterfinal was 4-1. The confusion went on for long enough as the announced score and the screen scores were revised with two outside officials walking onto the court to resolve the muddle. The review went in the Chinese player’s favour. Both players then took turns declaring their versions of the score to the chair umpire. The confusion went on for long enough for two outside officials to come on to the court to resolve the muddle. Eventually, it was Sindhu’s turn to take it to 20-17 and three match points before falling victim to an avalanche of errors. A 24-shot rally followed, and a series of errors from Sindhu led to her downfall.