India were knocked out of the Sudirman Cup badminton tournament after going down meekly to Malaysia in the second Group C match of the mixed team championships here on Monday. Star shuttlers Kidambi Srikanth and PV Sindhu couldn’t produce the goods and it was all over for India in the prestigious tournament.
While Srikanth was too erratic in men’s singles contest, Sindhu showed great fightback in the decider after squandering an opening game advantage only to go down in the end to world No. 30 Goh Jin Wei.
It was always going to be an uphill task for Dhruv Kapila and Ashwini Ponnappa to tame the world No. 8 pair of Goh Soon Huat and Lai Shevon Jemie and the Indian combination tried their heart out before losing 16-21, 17-21 in 35 minutes.
An error-prone Srikanth then couldn’t get India’s campaign back on track, going down 16-21, 11-21 to world No. 8 Lee Zii Jia in a lop-sided men’s singles contest as the team was 0-2 down after the first two matches.
World No. 12 Sindhu then erased a 2-11 deficit in the third game but couldn’t go the distance, losing 21-14, 10-21, 20-22 to Goh in the women’s singles as India conceded a 0-3 lead to Malaysia in the five-match tie.
The result meant India were third in the group with Chinese Taipei and Malaysia finishing as the top two teams to qualify for the quarterfinals.