New Delhi: The fate of India’s men hinged on the singles in their Thomas Cup tie against South Korea. The shuttlers too knew their job — to win all their singles ties to survive — as the Korean doubles pairs were far too superior.
Team captain Parupalli Kashyap and R.M.V Gurusaidutt did their part, but 18th ranked K. Srikanth faltered at crucial junctures as India crashed out, going down fighting to South Korea 2-3.
With India down 0-2, Kashyap pulled one back with a 21-17, 21-14 win over Lee Dong Keun in the second singles but the doubles pairs of Sumeeth Reddy B. and Manu Attri, Akshay Dewalkar and Pranaav Jerry Chopra lost as expected.
World no. 4 duo of Kim Sa Rang and Kim Ki Jung sealed the rubber for Korea with a 21-16, 21-16 win over Dewalkar and Chopra.
Later, R.M.V. Gurusaidutt carved out a fighting 24-22, 21-13 victory over Soo Hwang Jong, but it was too little too late.
Srikanth squandered a game advantage to lose to Won Ho Son 21-17, 12-21, 18-21 in the first singles. At 17-20 in the decider, Srikanth saved a match point and had a chance to pull off the win. But a “few mistakes” made all the difference to him.
“I am disappointed with our performance. We had our chances. Today, Srikanth could have won his match and Gurusaidutt is also in form. Even I won today, so we could have pulled it off,” an upset Kashyap said.
The result also meant Korea made into the quarter-finals. On Wednesday, they meet Malaysia, while India play Germany in an inconsequential last league match.
Former champions Malaysia, led by world no. 1 Lee Chong Wei, were also through after they trounced Germany 4-1 in the other Group C tie.
For Germany, Lukas Schmidt saved the blushes for the side winning 22-20, 21-10 over Liew Daren.
Despite 4-1 scorelines (against India and Germany), Lee wanted Malaysia to win the Wednesday’s match to finish on top in the group. “That will mean we won’t meet China and we will have a good chance of going into the semi-finals,” he said after his straight games win over Marc Zwiebler.
Earlier, 13-time champions Indonesia crushed Hong Kong 5-0 in Group A, before Thailand opened their campaign with a convincing 5-0 win over Nigeria.
In the Uber Cup, defending champions China and Chinese Taipei recorded easy wins over England and Russia respectively, in Group W. However, both Chinese Taipei and England, with one wins each, are fighting for a berth into the next stage.
In contrast, Japan cruised to a dominant 5-0 win over Germany while Denmark rallied from one point down to beat Malaysia 3-2 in Group Z.
From this year, the tournament has been expanded to 16 teams, four more than the previous editions, with two sides each from four pools in both the competitions making the knock-out (last-8) stage.
