Indian men and women badminton teams crashed out of the Thomas and Uber Cup finals after suffering identical 0-3 thrashing at the hands of Indonesia and China respectively in their quarterfinal matches in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday.
Top Indian man and woman shuttlers Parupalli Kashyap and Saina Nehwal gave a scare to their higher-ranked opponents Taufik Hidayat and Yihan Wang before eventually bowing down 12-21, 21-10, 17-21 and 21-14, 11-21, 18-21 respectively.
However, all other Indians suffered straight game defeats as their campaign ended on a disappointing note.
In the Thomas Cup quarterfinal, Kashyap was the first to take the court and the world number 33rd shuttler came back strongly to win the second game 21-10 after losing the first 12-21.
In the decider, Kashyap was ahead 10-8 before Hidayat made it 10-10. But from there on, Hidayat stamped his authority and the closest scoreline Kashyap could reach was 13-14 before the world number five Indonesian wrapped up the game 21-17 and the match in one hour and one minute.
Indian doubles duo of Sanave Thomas and Akshay Dewalkar then lost 16-21, 17-21 to Markis Kido and Hendra Setiawan before Arvind Bhatt was outplayed 8-21, 10-21 by Simon Santoso in the third match.
In the Uber Cup, world number six Saina looked set for an upset victory in the first match by winning the first game 21-14 against Wang.
Saina produced some superb smashes and net winners against her world number one Chinese opponent. But Wang came back strongly and gave back to the Indian with better smashes and net winners to win the second game 21-11.
The stage was set for a thrilling deciding set and Saina made her Chinese opponent to do the catch up job initially with the Indian going up 8-5.
But after that Wang tightened her game and dictated terms on Sania till the scoreline was tied 18-18.
It was anybody’s game at that stage but the Chinese won three successive points to take the deciding game 21-18 and wrap up the match in 56 minutes.
Indian women’s doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa then lost 8-21, 11-21 before Sayali Gokhale was outplayed by Xin Wang 10-21, 14-21 in just 27 minutes in the third match.
