Indian women’s team’s campaign in the Badminton Asia Team Championship in Alor Setar, Malaysia, came to and end in the quarter-finals after they lost to Indonesia 1-3 on Friday.
The PV Sindhu-led Indian team had gone into the last-eight clash with a clear handicap as their third singles player, G Ruthvika Shivani, was ruled out due to back pain and was replaced by doubles specialist Rutuparna Panda.
That clearly meant that India’s hopes of making into the semi-finals depended completely on Sindhu, who was also playing the second doubles, and top doubles combination of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy.
Sindhu expectedly gave India a winning start when she overcame a second game hiccup to beat Fitriani Fitriani 21-13, 24-22 in 48 minutes.
Things however went downhill from there as Ponnappa and Reddy lost to world No 7 combination of Greysia Polii and Apriyani Rahayu 21-5, 21-16.
Sri Krishna Priya was one again unable to raise the bar in the team championship and lost 21-8, 21-15 against Hanna Ramadini, leaving the scratch combination of Sindhu and Sanyogita Ghorpade a huge task of keeping India alive.
However, it was not to be as the pair went down against Anggia Shitta Awanda and Ni Ketut Mahadewi IStarani 21-9, 21-18 in just 32 minutes.
Despite the loss, India can still qualify for the Uber Cup in May on the basis of the team’s world ranking barring any major changes in the world ranking by the time all the continental events are completed.