The India men’s team felt the absence of the star doubles duo
of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty as it suffered a 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 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.
It’s learnt that Satwik and Chirag were rested by the team management as India had already made it to the quarter finals 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, MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila squandered one-game advantage to lose 15-21, 21-19, 19-21 to Chen Bo Yang and Liu Yiin.
Commonwealth Games champion Lakshya then thrashed Lei Lan Xi 21-11, 21-16 in 40 minutes to again bring India back into the lead.
However, Suraj Goala and Pruthvi Krishnamurthy Roy lost 13-21, 9-21 to Ren Xiang Yu and Xie Hao Nan in the second doubles as the scoreline read 2-2.
