Carolina Marin beat PV Sindhu 21-19, 21-10 in 45 minutes to win a record third world title, in Nanjing, China on Sunday.
The match, a repeat of the 2016 Olympic final, lived up to the hype in the first game. As expected, Marin began aggressively and tried to unsettle Sindhu with her fast game. But a spate of errors from her -- with quite a few shots going long -- saw Sindhu lead 11-8 at the first changeover.
Soon, Sindhu was 15-11 ahead. But Marin did not let the deficit come in the way of her aggressive play. After a mini comeback, she levelled the scores at 15-15 and then again at 18-18. An angled smash took the Spaniard to game point, which she converted to move ahead.
The second game saw an even more aggressive Marin take complete charge. Sindhu failed to find any rhythm in the face of the relentless attacking game of her opponent, who seemed determined to end points as quickly as possible -- and it played out that way too.
Marin had an astonishing nine-point lead at the changeover and the result of the game and match seemed set by then. Sindhu showed more of an attacking instinct after the interval but it was never going to be enough. Marin's pace and smashes -- and deft touches at the net, too, when needed -- were too much in the one-sided game, which she won 21-10.
The second silver for Sindhu -- who lost an epic final to Japan's Nozomi Okuhara in Glasgow last year -- meant she is the only Indian to have four World Championships podium finishes. She had won bronzes at the 2013 Guangzhou and 2014 Copenhagen editions.