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The Indian men’s and women’s teams offered contrasting performances at the Thomas and Uber Cup Asian Zone preliminaries at Macau on Wednesday. While neither of the two teams – the men taking on Indonesia and the women China – was expected to triumph over formidable adversaries, the men offered the Indonesians a fight before going down 2-3. The women were whitewashed 5-0 by what was effectively a Chinese ‘B’ team. Despite the result, the Indian men had already assured themselves of a place in the quarterfinals. They will take on powerhouses Malaysia on Thursday.
The most surprising result was Saina Nehwal’s straight-games loss against Jiang Yanjiao, and will cause concern in her camp, for she has been falling regularly to Chinese opponents over the last year. Saina fell after a close fight, 21-19 21-19, but the result set the tempo for what was to come.
Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa were competitive in the first game but were overwhelmed in the second by Zhao Yunlei/ Qing Tian 21-19 21-10. Much was expected of PV Sindhu, but the teenaged national champion could not punch above her weight and was dismissed 21-16 21-13 by Li Xuerui.
Shu Cheng and Pan Pan made it 4-0 by quelling Prajakta Sawant/ Pradnya Gadre, before Liu Xin made it 5-0 for the Chinese with a 21-9 21-2 verdict over Sayali Gokhale.
While the Indian women were capitulating, the men’s team put up an inspired performance. Although P Kashyap fell surprisingly tamely to Simon Santoso, 21-7 21-15, the men’s doubles pair of Sanave Thomas and Rupesh Kumar achieved one of their career’s finest wins, with a 21-18 21-16 result over Alvent Yulianto and Hendra Gunawan. Unfortunately for the Indians, Anand Pawar proved no match for Taufik Hidayat (21-16 21-13), and Akshay Dewalkar/ Pranav Chopra stood no chance against former Olympic and world champions Markis Kido/ Hendra Setiawan 21-18 21-16. Sai Praneeth reduced the margin of defeat by taking out the final rubber, beating Dionysium Hayom Rumbaka 13-21 21-15 21-9.
With Malaysia boasting of Lee Chong Wei and the doubles pair of Koo Kien Keat/ Tan Boon Heong, India will have to win the second and third singles if they are to nurse any hopes of an upset. It’s likely that India will play their trump card Sourabh Verma in the do-or-die match.
