DUBAI: The Indian badminton team handed a 4-1 defeat to Commonwealth Games champions Malaysia in their final Group B tie at the ongoing Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championships 2023 in Dubai on Thursday to end up as table-toppers in their group and advance to the quarter-finals.
India qualified for the QFs with wins over Kazakhstan and UAE as well. They have maintained a perfect record of three wins in three ties. In the quarterfinals on Friday, India will be playing Hong Kong, which finished at number two in Group D, as per Olympics.com.
At the Dubai Exhibition Centre, World number nine HS Prannoy, India’s top men’s singles star, gave a great start to India’s tie by stunning the world number four and current Asian champion Lee Zii Jia 18-21, 21-13, 25-23.
Two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu continued India’s domination, thrashing Malaysian teen Wong Ling Ching 21-13, 21-17 in the women’s singles match. India were leading 2-0 at this point.
Malaysia made a short comeback in the tie, defeating India’s makeshift men’s doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Dhruv Kapila, who went down to Tokyo Olympics 2020 bronze medalists Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik by 16-21, 10-21.
The scoreline was 2-1 at this point, though still in favour of India.
In the women’s doubles match, the world number 19 duo of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand avenged their loss to the world number five pair of Pearly Tan and Thiinaah Muralitharan in the CWG 2022 mixed team final. The Indians emerged victorious 23-21, 21-15.
The mixed doubles pair of Ishaan Bhatnagar and Tanisha Crasto overcame resistance from Chen Tang Jie and Toh Ee Wei to win 21-19, 19-21, 21-16.
This is the second time that India has qualified for QFs in three editions of the championships. They were knocked out of group stages back in 2019 and were beaten 3-2 by Thailand in the quarterfinals of the inaugural edition of the tournament back in 2017. (ANI)