India’s challenge ends in Thomas and Uber Cup 2024
Defending champion India failed to defend its title in Thomas Cup badminton 2024. The Indian team had to face a 1-3 defeat against China in the quarter-finals. The women’s team’s campaign also ended with a 0-3 defeat against Japan in the Uber Cup badminton tournament. India won the title for the first time in the World Men’s Team Championship Thomas Cup two years ago.
Thursday was a very difficult day for Indian badminton players and only Lakshya Sen could register victory. World number nine player HS Prannoy, number three pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty and pair of Dhruv Kapila and Sai Prateek had to face defeat. This was a repeat of the team final of the Asian Games 2023 where India had won the silver medal for the first time with a 2-3 defeat.
The Indian team finished second in its group with a 1-4 defeat against Indonesia on Wednesday. The Chinese team looked in better form against India and did not give any chance to the defending champions. Prannoy was the first to come from India, who despite presenting a tough challenge, had to face defeat against world number two player Shi Yuqi 21-15 11-21 14-21 in 66 minutes and China took a 1-0 lead. After the defeat, Prannoy said, ‘I don’t know but I think China got a day’s break and they came (in the match) much fresher. It makes a huge difference in the third game.’ He said, ‘I would say that we had a very long night and by the time we slept it was 1:32 (at night). I think that energy level cannot be recovered.’
Satvik and Chirag had to face defeat for the second consecutive day. They suffered a 15-21 21-11 12-21 defeat against the world number one pair of Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang, giving China a 0-2 lead. Lakshya Sen then tried to give India a comeback by defeating Li Shifeng 13-21 21-8 21-14. But Dhruv and Sai then lost against the match 10-21 10-21, dashing India’s hopes.
Before this, Ashmita Chaliha fought hard but the young and inexperienced Indian women’s team had to face defeat at the hands of Japan in the Uber Cup. The Indian team, playing without PV Sindhu, had qualified for the knockouts by defeating Canada and Singapore in the group stage but was defeated 5-0 by China in the last league match.
