Akechi in fact is a hugely competent opponent with an evolved game sense and most ingredients to challenge top names. She had taken out two Top 10s this week, and in all three sets, the scores went neck-to-neck. But Sindhu, even if made to fight, had the strokes to break away and prance towards the end.

The first rally had been the indication of what was to come. The shuttlewent to multiple corners, got both stretching and lunging and ended with a Sindhu drop that Akechi sent out. That the level if physicality was the same on both ends is a testament to Sindhu’s fitness – Akechi was 14 when Sindhu won her World title.

But the shot-making quality simply stayed stellar from both women. Sindhu sent down a straight smash and won an early net dribble battle. But Akechi was undaunted. She made Sindhu twist and turn – two jabs on the backhand side, one punch on the forehand flank. But then the flat smashes of Sindhu got crooning.

“She’s tall and she will have me running,” Akechi had told BWF after giggling about heading back and cooking herself a dinner in her rice cooker she ferries around. But Sindhu was serving up spicy poppers.

The ones that carried venom, Akechi dumped into the net limply. But the sliced smashes were even more potent as they stubbed out Akechi in the opening set. The French fans like their physicality in badminton – Alex Lanier, Popovs and even old favourites Satwik-Chirag. Sindhu was built to do well here and find the applause.

The second set saw Akechi grow defiant and actually push Sindhu to the edges of precision. Akechi doesn’t fade easy so she dragged the Indisn into extra points and earned herself a decider. All the crowd wanted was a third set because the quality of strokes for those 73 minutes was exquisite.

But the Japanese was increasingly forced to go for the lines, due to the Sindhu defence. Somewhere along last two years, Sindhu has realised that defense is best repurposed to cut out opponent angles and options, and not to prolong rallies endlessly. So Akechi piled up errors of the long and wide shuttle variety.

Even then she wasn’t done in the third. Sindhu had to bring in her A Game and more, as she was pushed all the way drawing out her last creative and cranking ounce. She was very pitch perfect at the net anyway, but the strokes from the back needed careful vernier calliper calculations to evade Akechi.

The win came from the second of her almighty shoulder smashes – you could hear the grunt needed to drawvout energy for that one.

Sindhu looks primed to solve the unsolvable puzzle of An Se-young in the finals on Sunday. She had won Japan Open earlier, has beaten a tenacious Japanese here. But An Se-young leads 10-0.