Despite the presence of world No. 4 Saina Nehwal, the Indian women's team was blanked 5-0 by China in the Uber Cup (Asia Zone), while the men's team went down 2-3 after a valiant fight against Indonesia in the Thomas Cup in Macau on Wednesday.
India's biggest hope, Saina suffered a narrow 19-21, 19-21 defeat to world No. 6 Yanjiao Jiang before Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponappa lost 19-21, 10-21 to Yunlei Zhao and Qing Tian.
P.V. Sindhu was no match for Xuerui Li, losing 16-21, 13-21, while Prajakta Sawant and Pradnya Gadre went down 18-21, 19-21 against Shu Cheng and Pan Pan. Sayali Gokhale lost the final match to Xin Liu 9-21, 2-21.
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In Thomas Cup, India got off to a bad start with P. Kashyap losing 7-21, 15-21 to Simon Santoso. The duo of Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas saw off Alvent Yulianto Chandra and Hendra Aprida Gunawan 21-18, 21-16 to even the tie.
Olympic champion Taufiq Hidayat helped Indonesia regain the lead by thrashing Anand Pawar 21-16, 21-13 and India lost out when Akshay Dewalkar and Pranav Chopra went down 21-18, 21-16 against Markis Kido and Hendra Setiawan.
In the inconsequential fifth match, B Sai Praneeth eked out a hard-fought 21-13, 15-21, 9-21 win over Dionysius Hayom Rumbaka.
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