PV Sindhu's dream of a hat-trick of Olympic medals was brought to a halt on Thursday night by an inspired performance from China's He Bing Jiao, who won their pre-quarterfinal match 21-19 21-14.
Exactly three years on from the day Sindhu beat Bing Jiao in the bronze medal playoff at the Tokyo Olympics, it was a role reversal in Paris as the Chinese was in complete command almost right from the off.
AUGUST 1: LIVE | INDIA'S OLYMPIC MEDAL TALLY | INDIA AT PARIS OLYMPICS | LATEST OLYMPIC NEWS | KEY DATES AT PARIS 2024
At no point in this match was Sindhu allowed to build momentum. Bing Jiao's defensive brilliance ensured that she became the first Chinese ever to beat Sindhu at an Olympics or World Championship.
Bing Jiao raced into a 5-1 lead early with a mix of aggressive strokes and some gifts from Sindhu as well. Sindhu hauled the deficit back to 5-8 and then to 10-11, but she could never really go on a run of points throughout the whole match. In fact, the only time she managed to win three consecutive points was to go from 2-8 to 5-8 in the second game.
However, despite never being able to force a consistent run of points, Sindhu managed to scrap and remain in the hunt in the first game right until the end. That's when it felt like the defining moment of the match happened. At 19-19, Bing Jiao took the points in two consecutive rallies which were the best of the match.
First, both players exchanged quick shots, before a big cross court smash from the Chinese evaded a diving forehand from Sindhu and just caught the line to give her a game point.
After that, Sindhu somehow picked up an impossible shuttle low, covered the net really nicely and kept defending the point until she couldn't, as Bing Jiao took the point and the first game, and then let out a massive roar.
Sindhu's body language at the break between the two games wasn't really encouraging, as the shoulders seemed to drop a bit, and her morale took a hit from coming so close but not being able to close that first game out.
"That first game should've been different. If I had won the first game, I felt I'd have had a lot more confidence within me," Sindhu said after the game.
That last point of the second game was the last instance at which this match felt like a contest. Bing Jiao raced into an 8-2 lead. Beyond that, there was the odd big smash from Sindhu to give herself a glimmer of hope, but that kept being quickly snuffed out by Bing Jiao. Her combination of incredible court coverage, shuttle retrieval and then picking the right moment to play the big attacking shots was just too much for Sindhu.
"In the second game, she took a big lead, I was trying to cover it but I kept making simple errors," Sindhu said.
This will be the first time Sindhu returns from an Olympics without a medal in her career. "It's a sad day, but I can keep my head held high," she concluded.
Whether or not she returns to this stage for Los Angeles 2028, Sindhu has already written her name into Indian sporting folklore with those two medals in Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo.
This defeat will sting, particularly after all the work that went into getting her body functional enough to make it to these Olympics at all after the injury layoffs at the end of 2022 and 2023.
If that was the last the Olympics saw of Sindhu, then who can argue against her keeping her head held high?