Badminton Asia Team Championship | India bow out of tournament with twin loss

02/10/2018

The PV Sindhu led Indian women's team faced a 1-3 loss against Indonesia in the quarter-finals which resulted in team’s exit from the Asia Team Badminton Championship. The same result occurred in the men’s quarter-final where Indian men’s team bowed out after registering a 1-3 loss to China.

The Indian women’s started their quarter-final campaign first as Sindhu entered the court to play the first singles match of the day against Fitriani Fitriani. She was the only player who tastes success as she defeated Fitriani 21-13, 24-22 to give a positive start to her side but other Indian players failed to maintain that momentum in the next three matches.

In the first women’s doubles match, Indian pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Sikki Reddy suffered a 21-5, 21-16 loss to Greysia Polli and Apriyani Rahayu. Priya Kudaravalli got a chance to play the second singles of the day but she failed to add points to India’s account as she received a 21-8, 21-15 from Hanna Ramadini.

In the second doubles of the tie, the Indonesian team sealed their berth in the next round as the duo of Anggia Shitta Awanda and Mahadewi Istarani outclassed Sindhu and Sanyogita Ghorpade 21-9, 21-18 in the straight games.

In the quarter-finals of the men’s category, the Indian team, who were led by Kidambi Srikanth, suffered the same fate. Srikanth was the only player who managed to win his clash as the top Indian shuttler beat Shi Yuqi 14-21, 21-16, 21-7 in the first singles.

Same as the Indian women’s team, Indian men’s player failed to add points as they lost all the remaining matches which ended country’s hope in the tournament.

The Indian duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty lost to He Jiting and Tan Qiang 17-21, 18-21. The Chinese team got a 2-1 lead after second men’s singles encounter where Sai Praneeth after showing some fight he went down against Qiao Bin 21-9, 11-21, 17-21.

Manu Attri and Sumeeth Reddy, the second Indian pair, managed to give a tough fight to Han Chengkai and Zhou Haodong but lost 21-14, 19-21, 14-21.