Asia team c’ships: Men shuttlers cede ground to China, finish second in group

Shah Alam (Malaysia), Feb 15

The Indian men’s team felt the absence of the star doubles duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty as it suffered a narrow 2-3 loss to China in a Badminton Asia Team Championships group tie here today.

HS Prannoy and Lakshya Sen won their singles matches, but China fought back with wins in the two doubles contests to make it 2-2. National champion Chirag Sen then lost the fifth match as India conceded the tie.

Already through to the knockout stage, India finished second in the group, with China taking the

top spot.

World No. 1 pair of Satwiksairaj and Chirag and Kidambi Srikanth were rested by the team management as India had already made it to the quarterfinals after the 1-4 win over Hong Kong on Wednesday.

World No. 7 Prannoy started the proceedings with a gritty 6-21 21-18 21-19 win over world No. 16 Weng Hong Yang to put India 1-0 ahead.

In the first doubles, world No. 44 MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila squandered a one-game advantage to lose 15-21 21-19 19-21 to Chinese combination of Chen Bo Yang and Liu Yi, ranked 17 places above them.

Lakshya then thrashed Lei Lan Xi 21-11 21-16 in 40 minutes to restore the lead, but national champions Suraj Goala and Pruthvi Krishnamurthy Roy lost 13-21 9-21 to Ren Xiang Yu and Xie Hao Nan in the second doubles match as the scoreline read 2-2. In the deciding match, Chirag lost 15-21 16-21 to Wang Zheng Xing.