Alor Setar: Kidambi Srikanth and PV Sindhu’s valiant fight went in vain as India crushed out of the Badminton Asia Team Championships after defeats to Indonesia and China respectively, in the quarter-finals here on Friday.
Both Srikanth and Sindhu won their respective matches but saw others go down as India lost 3-1 in both the men’s and women’s category.
While the world no 4 Sindhu overcame Fitriani 21-13, 24-22 in straight sets to begin the proceedings for India, the fifth ranked Srikanth similarly won the first game in the men’s division, defeating Shi Yuqi 14-21, 21-16, 21-7 in a closely fought battle.
It was however all downhill for India from there as none failed to win a single match, with India eventually bowing out of the competition.
In the women’s category the doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa amd Sikki Reddy lost 21-5, 21-16 to Greysia Polli and Apriyani Rahayu in the second game.
Priya Kudaravalli soon followed suit with a 21-8, 21-15 loss to Hanna Ramadini before the pair of Anggia Shitta Awanda and Mahadewi Istarani sealed the tie for Indonesia with a 21-9, 21-18 straight sets win over Sindhu and Sanyogita Ghorpade.
Srikanth on the other had started well but the others failed to take full advantage of his victory with all the Indian shuttlers losing the remaining three games to oust themselves out of the tournament.
The doubles pair of Satwik Sairaj RankiReddy and Chirag Shetty lost 17-21, 18-21 to the Chinese duo of He Jiting and Tan Qiang for their first defeat of the day, while B Sai Praneeth then went down fighting against Qiao Bin 21-9, 11-21, 17-21 in the second singles match of the day.
With China leading 2-1, India went into the final game of the day hoping for a miracle. The pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy fought their heart out, winning the first set but could not stand the pressure against Han Chengkai and Zhou Haodong eventually going down 21-14, 19-21, 14-21.