Indian men restored their pride somewhat with a fighting 3-2 victory over Germany to end their campaign in the 2014 Li-Ning BWF Thomas and Uber Cup on a winning note.
RMV Guru Sai Dutt once again was the star performer as the former junior national champion defeated Lukas Schmidt of Germany 14-21, 21-19, 21-19 to clinch the tie in favour of India after the doubles pair of Akshay Dewalkar and Pranav Jerry Chopra had brought India back into the match in their last match.
Incidentally, Gurusai Dutt also ended the campaign on a satisfactory note with an all-win record by the shuttler in the three Group C encounters.
Having lost their first two matches in Group C, India needed to beat Germany to avoid ending with the wooden spoon in the group. Expectedly, world number 18 K Srikanth gave the hosts a positive start with a 21-18, 18-21, 21-18 victory over Marc Zwiebler in just under an hour.
This raised hope of a victory as the team was obviously depending on the three singles rubbers to overcome Germany's challenge. But an unexpected loss of P Kashyap against Dieter Domke, ranked 59th in the world, put the pressure back on the hosts.
However, national champions Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Akshay Dewalkar raised the bar when it was needed the most as they got the better of Peter Kaesbauer and Josche Zurwonne 21-9, 17-21, 21-19 to restore parity at 2-2.
In other matches on the day, Korean and Japanese women topped their respective groups with an all-win record. Korea defeated Indonesia 4-1 in Group X while Japan beat Denmark 4-1 in what turned out to be a more or less one-sided affair.
As for the men's section, top seeds Indonesia hammered Thailand 4-1 to top Group A, while Malaysia downed Korea 3-2. As expected, the Koreans took both their doubles rubbers but what clinched the issue in favour of Malaysia was the three crucial singles.
|
|
Comments:
