India’s campaign ends as both men and women team go down in quarters
But the players took the fight to their opponents as HS Prannoy took the opening game against Shi Yu Qi before going down 15-21, 21-11, 21-14. The world no. 9 later admitted that he was still getting back to his best and the long match a day earlier could have also played a part in the third game.
Lakshya Sen (ANI)
NEW DELHI: Lakshya Sen continued his domination of Asian Games gold medallist Li Shi Feng and the rest of the Indian squad pushed overwhelming favourites and hosts China in all the matches but ended up on the wrong side of the 1-3 score line in the quarter-finals of the BWF Thomas and Uber Cup 2024 in Chengdu on Thursday.
The loss meant that India’s challenge in the competition came to an end as the women had lost to Japan by identical margin earlier in the day. With India’s top men’s singles player HS Prannoy making a comeback following some health issues and doubles star Satwiksairaj Rankireddy also returning after a shoulder injury, Indians were always the underdogs despite being the defending champions.
But the players took the fight to their opponents as HS Prannoy took the opening game against Shi Yu Qi before going down 15-21, 21-11, 21-14. The world no. 9 later admitted that he was still getting back to his best and the long match a day earlier could have also played a part in the third game.
The Chinese then extended their lead as Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang got the better of Satwiksairaj and Chirag Shetty 21-15, 11-21, 21-12.
Sen, who had a 6-3 head-to-head record against Li before this match, then got India on the scoreboard as he shrugged off a bad start and the loss of opening game to register a dominating 13-21, 21-8, 21-14 win and kept Indian hopes alive.
In the women’s quarterfinal, Ashmita Chaliha and Isharani Baruah pushed their much higher ranked opponents but could not cause an upset.
In the first singles, Ashmita saved a match point against World no 11 Aya Ohori and led 11-9 at the interval in the decider. But Ohori used all her experience to raise the tempo immediately after to take five straight points and then went on to wrap the match 21-10, 22-24, 21-15 in an hour and seven minutes.
Isharani Baruah then gave a good account of her abilities as she kept pace with former world champion Nozomi Okuhara and even lead 14-11 in the opening game before the experienced Japanese turned the tables by winning 10 of the next 11 points.