Former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth’s victory went in vain as India lost 1-4 to Malaysia in the Badminton Asia Team Championships on Thursday.
Former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth’s victory went in vain as India lost 1-4 to Malaysia in the Badminton Asia Team Championships on Thursday.
Srikanth was the only Indian shuttler to register a win against a young Malaysian side in its second group B match at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex.
The Guntur-born shuttler Srikanth struggled to get past 23-year-old Cheam June Wei, a 2014 Youth Olympic Games gold medallist. After losing the first game, the Indian made a good comeback to script a 14-21, 21-16, 21-19 to make it 1-2 after the first three ties.
In the singles event, world no. 11 B Sai Praneeth and HS Prannoy suffered straight games defeat in their respective matches.
Prannoy was no match for Leong Jun Hao, a 2017 World Junior Championships silver medallist and a 2017 Asian Junior Champion, as he went down 10-21, 15-21 in 34 minutes.
As for Praneeth, the world championships bronze medallist lost 18-21, 15-21 to world No. 14 Lee Zii Jia.
In the doubles clash, the absence of specialist Satwiksairaj Rankireddy’s proved crucial for India as they had to go with two scratch pairs.
Satwik had pulled out the event due to an ankle sprain and India had – MR Arjun and Chirag Shetty and Dhruv Kapila and Lakshya Sen as the two doubles pair who lost their respective ties.
After this loss, India have finished second in the group and will now take on Thailand in the quarterfinals on Friday.
Thailand has quality players such as world No. 12 Kantaphon Wangcharoen, three-time world junior champion Kunlavut Vitidsarn and 2018 Japan Open runners-up Khosit Phetpradab in the singles.
Earlier, India had a 4-1 win over Kazakhstan in the opening match.
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