CWG 2022: Kidambi Srikanth falters as India settle for silver in mixed team badminton event

Commonwealth Games on Tuesday. Srikanth lost to lower-ranked Tze Yong Ng in three games to put the defending champions on the backfoot in the final. PV Sindhu did what was expected of her in the women's singles while the men's doubles pairing of Satwik Sairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty went down in the opening doubles.

With the win, Malaysia regained the title they had lost to India four years ago in Gold Coast. For India to retain gold, a lot depended on the outcome of the men's doubles tie featuring Rankireddy and Shetty, and the Olympic bronze medallists duo of Teng Fong Aaron Chia and Wooi Yik Soh. The women's doubles and mixed doubles were India's weaker links and the team relied on men's doubles and the two singles to get the job done. The opening contest was full of long and winding rallies but Reddy and Shetty lost the majority of them, failing to keep pace with the ultra attacking Malaysian pair.

For a change, the Malaysian crowd made more noise than the Indians, providing a further push to Chia and Soh. After a tough battle, the Malaysians won 21-18, 21-15 to put their team 1-0 up In the women's singles, two-time Olympic medallist Sindhu was expected to win comfortably but the 60-th ranked Goh Jin Wei made life very tough for the world number 7. Sindhu led 11-6 in the first game but Goh looked a different player after the interval. She made the former world champion run around the court with her skillful net play. Goh made a strong comeback to take the game till the very end. Sindhu ended a rally with a forehand smash on Goh's left to make it 21-20 before the Malaysian netted a return. Goh continued with similar tactics in the second game as well, trying to bring Sindhu close to the net. However, Sindhu was