India bow out of Sudirman Cup; lose to China in quarters

India failed to breach the Chinese wall and going down to the top seed nation in the quarter-finals here on Friday bowed out of the Sudirman Cup mixed team badminton championship.

India lost the first three matches of the tie and as a result the last two matches of Rio Olympics Gold medallist P.V. Sindhu and the women's doubles match of Ashwini Ponnappa and N. Sikki Reddy were treated as dead rubbers.

The first match of the mixed doubles pair category saw some initial fight from Ponnappa and Satwiksairaj Ranikireddy. But as the match progressed, Lu Kai and Huang Yaqiong proved superior and won 16-21, 21-13, 21-16 to take a 1-0 lead.

Although the Indian pair managed to stretch the match to the third set, they failed to cross the last hurdle.

In the mens' singles category, it was a bad day for Kidambi Srikanth as the Hyderabadi shuttler was outplayed by the reigning Olympic champion and two-time World champion Chen Long 16-21, 17-21 in a match which lasted 48 minutes.

Srikanth never looked in the contention against Long and was outplayed in every department of the game.

Trailing 0-2, the mens' doubles match was a do-or-die affair for India, but it was an uphill task for Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty against Fu Haifeng and Zhang Nan.

It was a cake walk for the experienced Chinese pair as they comfortably defeated the Indian pair 21-9, 21-11 inside 30 minutes to enable China enter the semi-finals of the tournament.

--IANS

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