The Indian men’s badminton team went down 2-3 to China in their 2024 Badminton Asia Team Championships group stage encounter in Shah Alam, Malaysia on Thursday.
HS Prannoy and Lakshya Sen registered two wins for India even as they rested the men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty and former singles world No 1 Kidambi Srikanth for the contest, having already secured a spot in the knockout round after their win over Hong Kong on Wednesday.
India started off well in the match as they took an 1-0 lead as HS Prannoy got the better of Weng Hong Yang 6-21, 21-18, 21-19.
Prannoy, who looked completely out of sorts in the opening game, bounced back well to win the first tie of the match in an hour and 13 minutes.
The men’s doubles pair of Dhruv Kapila and Arjun MR then went down 15-21, 21-19, 19-21 in a hard fought battle against Chen Bo Yang and Liu Yi as China levelled the match score.
Lakshya Sen breezed past Lei Lan Xi 21-11, 21-16 in 40 minutes in the second men’s singles tie as India regained their lead.
However, the doubles pair of Suraj Goala-Pruthvi Roy lost 13-21, 9-21, while national champion Chirag Sen also lost 15-21, 16-21 in the final singles tie to concede the match.