Suzhou, China: Star players Kidambi Srikanth and PV Sindhu were eliminated from the Sudirman Cup badminton tournament as India suffered an embarrassing 5-0 defeat to Malaysia in the second Group C match here on Monday. It was a contrasting defeat.
A day after losing 4-1 to Chinese Taipei, India produced another lackluster performance against Commonwealth Games champions Malaysia, knocking them out of the World Mixed Team Championship in the group stage for the second successive year.
Srikanth was too erratic in the men’s singles, but Sindhu made a great fight back in the final after squandering the first game advantage, but ultimately lost to world No. 30 Goh Jingwei. .
It was always going to be a tough ask for Dhruv Kapila and Ashwini Ponnappa to outsmart the world No. 8 pair of Goh Sun Hart and Lai Shevon Jemmy, but the Indian duo gave it their all and won in 35 matches. They lost 16-21, 17-21. Minutes.
After that, the error-prone Srikanth was unable to get India’s record back on track, losing 16-21, 11-21 to world No. 8 Li Zhijia in a lopsided men’s singles match.
Sindhu, ranked 12th in the world, closed the gap 2-11 in the third match, but fell short and lost to Goh 21-14, 10-21, 20-22 in the women’s singles, leaving India 0-3 behind Malaysia. I allowed the lead. 5 games tied.
Sindhu said, “It’s a little disappointing. We were down by eight points in the third game, but we came back. It’s very disappointing that we lost two points by a narrow margin.”
“In the second game, we didn’t have any momentum. No matter what we were playing, we were making mistakes. It was either going to the net or being out. In the third game, we should have held the lead from the beginning. , gave her a huge lead.” There was an unforced error that made a huge difference. ”
“I got into a rhythm after a few points,” Sindhu said in the final.
“At 20-20 I felt like there should have been a little more rally. My stroke hit the frame and went into the middle of the court and she finished.
“After 20-all, it was a game anyone could play. You can make mistakes, there’s a lot of pressure, you’re nervous, you want to keep the shuttle in the court, you want to score points. I want to take it, and I have a lot of mixed emotions.” ”
In the last two men’s doubles matches, world No. 5 Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy lost to Aaron Chia and Soh Wooik 18-21, 19-21, followed by Gayatri Gopichand and Trisa.・Jolly group lost 15-21, 13-21. India drew a blank.
With this loss, India finished third in their group, with Chinese Taipei and Malaysia the top two teams who qualified for the quarterfinals.
India will play Australia in the final Group C match on Wednesday.
