India, who were drawn in a tough group, had lost to Chinese Taipei and Malaysia – two heavyweights of the game – in the first two group stage matches to crash out of the mixed team badminton tournament.
The Indian shuttlers did not have the best of starts even against Australia in their final group C tie as mixed doubles pair of Sai Pratheek and Tanisha Crasto lost 21-17 14-21 18-21 against Kenneth Zhe Hooi Choo and Gronya Somerville.
HS Prannoy drew the scores level for India with a commanding 21-8 21-8 win over Jack Yu in just 28 minutes. With nothing at stake, India fielded Anupama Upadhyaya in the women’s singles in place of PV Sindhu and the youngster didn’t disappoint, scoring a 21-16 21-18 win over Tiffany Ho.
Similarly in men’s doubles, MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila then defeated Ricky Tang and Ryane Wang 21-11 21-12 to hand India an unassailable 3-1 lead in the contest.
The women’s doubles pair of Crasto and Ashwini Ponnappa finished off the contest in style, beating Kaitlyn Ea and Angela Yu 21-19 21-13 to give India a consolation win in the badminton tournament.
Sudirman Cup 2023: India lose to Chinese Taipei 1-4 in Group C opening tie
Earlier on Sunday (May 14), India went down to Chinese Taipei 1-4. Double Olympic medallist Sindhu, Prannoy, doubles pairs Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty and Pratheek-Crasto all lost their respective matches, while Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand earned the sole win.
In the second match of Group C on Monday (May 15), Kidambi Srikanth lost the men’s singles match as Sindhu went down fighting in the women’s singles contest.
The doubles pairs of Rankireddy-Shetty, Jolly-Gopichand and Kapila-Ponnappa also suffered defeats in the men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles matches respectively as India lost 0-5 to Malaysia.
(With PTI inputs)
