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OVERVIEW
The 2018 World Badminton Championship concluded in Nanjing, China on 5th August 2018. It was a lovely competition which saw Caroline Marin creating history with her 3rd World Championship Gold, and Kento Momota of Japan beating Shi Yuqi to become the new Men's World Champion.
INDIA'S PERFORMANCE
India's performance in the tournament was a mixed bag. With disappointing performances in the Men's Singles and Doubles Events and a satisfactory performance in the other disciplines, India ended the tournament with a solitary silver medal which was a step down compared to the 2017 Glasgow edition where they won 1 Silver and 1 Bronze.
P V SINDHU: RUNNER'S UP IN WOMEN'S SINGLES
India's lone medal bore fruit thanks to the efforts of none other than P V Sindhu, who has made winning World Championship Medals a habit - her fourth medal in World Championships.
P V Sindhu had a wonderful Tournament. Being presented with a tough draw, Sindhu had to face quality opponents in each of her matches. However, she was clinical in her performances against the likes of Sun Ji Hyun in pre-quarters, defending Champion Okuhara in the Quarters and the World No. 2 Yamaguchi in the Semis.
With dominating victories against world class opponents, Sindhu came into the Final against her arch-rival Caroline Marin, as the favourite to win it.
However, she again faltered at the final hurdle and had to be content with silver.
In spite of being the most consistent performer in the World Championships in the last 5 Editions, a gold medal still eludes Sindhu.
PERFORMANCE OF OTHER INDIAN SHUTTLERS
Apart from Sindhu, other star shuttlers like Saina Nehwal, K Srikant and H S Pranoy had a disappointing outing.
Saina started off in an impressive fashion, by beating the likes of Intanon (Former World Champion) in the pre-quarters. She looked set to repeat her medal-winning performance of Glasgow. However, in the quarters, she suffered a drubbing at the hands of Caroline Marin, thus ending her chance of winning a medal.
K Srikant and H S Pranoy had very favourable draws and were expected to reach the medal rounds. However, they lost against players (Daren Liew & Ygor Coelho respectively) ranked much lower than them, and thus lost the golden opportunity to win medals.
Sai Praneet reached the quarters before getting beaten by the eventual champion Momota. Sameer Verma also lost to Lin Dan in the initial rounds.
In Mixed Doubles, the pair of Ashwini Ponappa and Satwik Reddy reached till the quarters, by beating much higher ranked teams in the initial rounds.
Although they failed to win a medal, their performance was surely a positive to take away from this tournament for India.
The other doubles pairs (including the experienced pair of Ashwini Siki in Women's Doubles) could not make a mark and lost in the initial rounds of the tournament only.
IN CONCLUSION...
As a whole India's performance in the tournament was average, and they need to pull up their socks if they want to produce their best ever performance in the upcoming Asian Games.
