In the women’s singles semi-final of the Asian Badminton Championship held in the Philippines last April, Indian player BV Sindhu suffered a shocking loss to Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi with the score of 21-13, 19-21, 16-21.
Sindhu, who won the first set in the match, was leading 14-11 in the second set when the match referee penalized Sindhu a point. That means that point is added to the opponent’s account. The umpire took this action saying that Sindhu had taken too long to serve.
The umpire refused to accept Sindhu’s explanation that her opponent was not ready to serve. An appeal against the decision of the arbitrator to the Chief Arbitrator is of no avail. After that Sindhu played in desperation and lost the match.
Sindhu had written to the World Badminton Federation and the Asian Badminton Federation regarding the wrongful punishment meted out to her. In this situation, Asian Badminton Federation Technical Committee Chairman Chik Shin Sen expressed regret to Sindhu for the referee’s wrong decision in the Asian tournament.
In this regard, he wrote to Sindhu, ‘Unexpectedly, the mistake made by the referee at that time could not be corrected. However, we are taking steps to prevent such human errors from happening again.