Thomas & Uber Cup: India dispatched by ‘fresher’ China

Chengdu (China), May 2

Lakshya Sen was the only winner on the day for India as the men’s and women’s teams were knocked out in the quarterfinals of the Thomas and Uber Cup Final here today.

While the men failed to defend their title after going down 1-3 to China, the women suffered a 0-3 loss to Japan. The India-China contest was a rematch of the Asian Games team final which India lost 2-3 to sign off with a maiden silver.

A roaring start ended with a dampener for world No. 9 HS Prannoy as his spirited fight concluded with a 21-15 11-21 14-21 loss against world No. 2 Shi Yu Qi in a 66-minute clash.

“China had one day off and they came in the contest much fresher. It makes a big difference in the third game. Unfortunate to play today,” said Prannoy. “I will say that we had a very long night and by the time we slept it was 1:32am. Everybody was very disappointed last night (after the group stage loss to Indonesia), but to come out and play such a big match against the home crowd in less than 13-14 hours is a big task mentally,” he added.

For the second successive day, world No. 3 Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty had to walk back without logging a point for India after they were outmanoeuvred 15-21 21-11 12-21 by the world No. 1 pair of Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang.

All eyes were on Lakshya to keep India afloat, given his 6-3 head-to-head count against Li Shi Feng, and the 22-year-old lived up to the expectations, beating the world No. 6 for a 13-21 21-8 21-14.

However, Dhruv Kapila and Sai Pratheek went down 10-21 10-21 to world No. 11 Ren Xiang Yu and He Ji Ting.

Earlier, India fought hard against multiple-time winners Japan with Ashmita Chaliha and Isharani Baruah giving a good account of themselves.

World No. 53 Chaliha showed once again that she has the wherewithal to trouble top players during her 10-21 22-20 15-21 loss to world No. 11 Aya Ohori in a 67-minute contest.

The 20-year-old Isharani, ranked 83rd, let slip her lead in both games to lose 15-21 12-21 to former world No. 1 Nozomi Okuhara. Priya Konjengbam and Shruti Misra went down 8-21 9-21 to world No. 4 Nami Matsuyama and Chiharu Shida.