Saina and Co rout Canada 5-0, Malaysia drub men's team 4-1

Saina Nehwal today guided the Indian women's team to a crushing 5-0 win over Canada to launch their Uber Cup campaign in style but their men's counterpart came a cropper against former champions Malaysia as they suffered a crushing 1-4 defeat in Thomas Cup here.
After RMV Gurusaidutt salvaged some pride for the Indian mean with a hard-fought win in the third singles in group C, home stars Saina and P V Sindhu enthralled the handful of crowd with their dominating performance at the Siri Fort Sports Complex.
Skipper Saina first started the proceedings with an easy 21-4 21-12 win over Joycelyn Ko in 25 minutes and Sindhu then brushed off the initial jitters to crush Rachael Honderich 21-16 21-3 in a 26-minute lop-sided second singles match.

Commonwealth Games gold medallist pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa then completed the rout with a 21-11 21-12 Win over Bruce Alex and Phyllis Chan in the first women's doubles.
Playing the third singles, P C Thulasi then spanked Brittney Tam 21-11 21-13 to make it 4-0 in India's favour.
Doubles pair of Pradnya Gadre and Sikki Reddy N then bounced back from a game down to edge out Grace Gao and Rachael Honderich 20-22 21- 18 21-16 to complete the whitewash. The Indian eves will next take on Hong Kong tomorrow.

Earlier, promising shuttler Gurusaidutt was the only bright spot on an otherwise dismal day for the Indian men's team.

Playing the first singles, Kidambi Srikanth saved five game points in the opening game before going down fighting to world No 1 Lee Chong Wei 19-21 12-21 in a 35-minute match, while doubles pair of B Sumeeth Reddy and Manu Attri were thrashed 14-21 11-21 by Boon Heong Tan and Thien How Hoon in the first doubles match as India trailed 0-2.
Skipper Parupalli Kashyap then took the court to play the second singles but the Indian failed to gauge the game plan of his rival, Chong Wei Feng to eventually suffer a 13-21 6-21 loss as India lost the rubber 0-3.