India’s campaign at the Taipei Open Super 300 badminton tournament ended at the quarterfinals stage on Friday with defeats in the men’s singles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles events.
Parupalli Kashyap – the only singles player from India to make it to the quarterfinals stage – was up against Malaysian world No 59 Soong Joo Ven, who had defeated sixth seed Koki Watanabe earlier. The Indian fought back in the second game after dropping the opener but went down 12-21, 21-12, 17-21 eventually.
Kashyap started the match slowly but had the momentum heading into the decider, but Soong took control of the third game quickly and resisted a fightback from the Indian to close out the match.
There was a moment of controversy in the end as Kashyap was left frustrated by an umpiring call at 17-19. Instead of being a 1-point game after a superb comeback from the Indian, the ruling of net touch from chair umpire led to match points for Soong and the Malaysian independent shuttler converted his first to register back-to-back impressive upsets.
Read this thread for more updates on how the day panned out for Indian shuttlers:
Tanisha Crasto played in the other two matches featuring Indians. She first teamed up with Ishaan Bhatnagar in the mixed doubles quarterfinals against Hoo Pang Ron and Toh Ee Wei. The first game was a tight affair but the Malaysians upped their game when they needed to most and ran away with a 21-19, 21-12 victory in 33 minutes. Bhatnagar seemed to be bothered by a niggle to his right upper leg region in that one.
Finally, in the women’s doubles quarters, Crasto and Shruti Mishra went down fighting against sixth seeds NG Tsz Yau and Tsang Hiu Yan. The pair from Hong Kong raised its level at just the right time to take the opener before the Indians fought back valiantly to force a decider. The third game was close as well but Crasto and Mishra eventually lost 16-21, 22-20, 18-21.