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

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.

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.