Jakarta: India’s hopes at the Asian Games suffered a rude jolt after being eliminated in the quarterfinals of both the women’s and men's badminton team events on Monday.
The Indian women’s team, who clinched a bronze at the previous edition in Incheon, lost to top-seeded Japan 1-3, while the men were outplayed 3-1 by hosts Indonesia.
It was a tale of missed chances for the Indian men as both Kidambi Srikanth and the doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty failed to seize the big moments.
Srikanth went down to Anthony Sinisuka Ginting 21-23, 22-20, 10-21 in a hard-fought opening tie. Satwiksairaj and Chirag squandered an opening game advantage to lose to the world No. 1 pair of Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo 21-19, 19-21, 16-21. Though H S Prannoy kept India alive with an exciting win over Jonatan Christie 21-15, 19-21, 21-19, Manu Attri and Summeth Reddy lost to Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Adrianto 14-21, 18-21 as Indonesia marched into the semifinals.
Lone bright spot
In the women's tie, the only bright spot was provided by P V Sindhu who got the better of Akane Yamaguchi 21-18, 21-19 in a keenly-fought tie to hand India a 1-0 lead against Japan.
But thereafter, the Indians lost the plot. Sikki Reddy and Arathi Sara Sunil came a cropper against world No. 1 pair Sayaka Hirota and Yuki Fukushima 15-21, 6-21.
Saina Nehwal fought tooth and nail before losing in an edge-of-the-seat thriller to seventh-ranked Nozomi Okuhara 11-21, 25-23, 16-21. After trailing 12-17 in the second game, Saina fought back and levelled the score at 20-20 and eventually won the game 25-23. In the decider, the 28-year-old took a slender 11-10 lead, but Okuhara bounced back and pocketed the game and the match after the Indian squandered five points on the trot from 16-16.
It was up to Ashwini Ponnappa and Sindhu to keep India alive by winning the doubles tie, but the World No. 2 pair of Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi proved too good for them. The Indians were no match for the Japanese duo as they went down 13-21, 12-21.
The last-minute change in pairings too undermined India’s chances as Sikki was supposed to team up with Ashwini in one of the doubles ties.
