India’s run ends in Badminton Asia Team Championships quarterfinals

India’s challenge in the Badminton Asia Team Championships ended in the quarterfinals at Qingdao, China. The men lost 1-3 to Korea despite Kidambi Srikanth’s win, while the women fell 0-3 to China in the absence of PV Sindhu

Hyderabad: India’s challenge in the Badminton Asia Team Championships at Qingdao, China, came to an end after the men went down 1-3 against Korea while the women lost 0-3 against favourites China in the quarterfinals on Friday.

Having qualified second in Group C behind Japan, India depended on their singles strength against Korea in the men’s quarterfinal in the absence of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Lakshya Sen. And it looked like the strategy paid off when Ayush Shetty earned three match points in the first singles against Yoo Tae Bin in the decider. But the former world junior bronze medallist failed to convert those three and, despite saving three match points himself and earning one more, ultimately suffered a 18-21, 21-14, 26-24 reversal in an hour and 24 minutes.

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Korea extended their lead with Song Hyun Cho and Kim Won Ho beating the Indian scratch combination of Hariharan Amsakarunan and Chirag Shetty 21-11, 21-13.

Former world number one Kidambi Srikanth kept India’s hopes alive with a 21-15, 21-16 win over Choi Ji Hoon, but Korea wrapped up the match in the second doubles with Jin Yong and Ki Dong Ju defeating Pruthvi K Roy and K Sai Pratheek 21-11, 21-16.

Earlier, defending champions India could not match the strength of the formidable Chinese women’s team in the absence of PV Sindhu. World number 10 Gao Fang Jie started their march towards the semifinals with a 21-9, 21-9 win over Tanvi Sharma in the first singles.

India’s top doubles combination of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand earned a game point in the opening game against world number four pairing of Jia Yi Fan and Zhang Shu Xian but went down 24-22, 21-18.

Rakshita Sree then raised hopes of a fightback when she bagged the opening game against Xu Wen Jing but could not sustain the momentum and lost 14-21, 21-15, 21-17.