BWF World Junior Badminton Championships | Sankar Muthusamy settles for silver, loses final in straight games
India's Sankar Muthusamy lost the final of the men's singles competition at the BWF Junior World Championship against Kuo KL of Chinese Taipei in straight games 14-21, 20-22. The Indian looked off-color on the day but still did well enough in the championship to settle for a silver.
This is only the second time any Indian male shuttler has made it to the final of the event, after Lakshya Sen in 2018. Sankar was slow off the blocks and played a catch-up game throughout the match. Although there were times in the match when he could have made a comeback, but his defensive play did not allow that.
In the first games, there was a point when the scores were leveled at 13-13, but from there on the Taipei boy stole the show, and scored eight points in succession. Come the second game, Sankar was low on confidence and it showed in his unforced errors. There was a point where he was trailing 14-20, but miraculously drew level at 20-20. But post that, he could not focus on the match, and lost the next two points.
š„ FOR SANKAR š
ā BAI Media (@BAI_Media) October 30, 2022
What a campaign for our young shuttler!š
Keep it up champ šš@himantabiswa | @sanjay091968 #BWFWorldJuniorChampionships#IndiaontheRise#badminton pic.twitter.com/F9Plfpsjf4
Meanwhile, in the women's competition, the likes of Anupama Upadhyaya and Unnati Hooda, who were expected to win medals, returned empty-handed.