Indian Men Lose 2-3 To China In Badminton Asia Team Championships

The Indian men's team felt the absence of star doubles duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty as it suffered a narrow 2-3 loss to China in the Badminton Asia Team Championships group tie here on Thursday. Star shuttlers HS Prannoy and Lakshya Sen won their singles matches but China fought back with wins in the two doubles contests to make it 2-2. National champion Chirag Sen then lost 15-21 16-21 to Wang Zheng Xing in the fifth match as India conceded the tie.

Already through to the knock-out stage, India finished second in the group, with China taking the top spot.

World No. 1 pair of Satwik and Chirag and 2021 World Championships silver medallist Kidambi Srikanth were rested by the team management as India had already made it to the quarterfinals after the 1-4 win over Hong Kong on Wednesday.

World No. 7 Prannoy started the proceedings with a gritty 6-21 21-18 21-19 win over world no. 16 Weng Hong Yang to put India 1-0 ahead.

In the first doubles, world no. 44 MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila squandered one-game advantage to lose 15-21 21-19 19-21 to Chinese combination of Chen Bo Yang and Liu Yi, ranked 17 places above them.

Commonwealth Games champion Lakshya Sen then thrashed Lei Lan Xi 21-11 21-16 in 40 minutes to again bring India back into the lead but national champions Suraj Goala and Pruthvi Krishnamurthy Roy lost 13-21 9-21 to Ren Xiang Yu and Xie Hao Nan in second doubles as the scoreline read 2-2.

In the deciding match, Chirag couldn't get India the win.

Prannoy and Weng had earlier faced each other in two finals with each getting the better off the other once. On Thursday, the duo dished out some superlative badminton to keep the fans on the edge of their seats.

Weng opened up 10-0 lead in a jiffy to