Thomas and Uber Cup: Indian men beat Germany; Women’s team defeats Canada

Indian badminton teams began their Thomas and Uber Cup campaigns in an emphatic fashion yesterday. While Indian men beat Germany 5-0 in Thomas Cup,  Women’s team defeated  Canada 4-1 in Uber Cup.

World Championships bronze medallist Lakshya Sen started the proceeding in the men’s event with an easy 21-16 21-13 win over world No. 64 Max Weisskirchen.

The doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty had to dig deep as they were stretched to a three gamer by Jones Ralfy Jansen and Marvin Seidel.

World number 11 Kidambi Srikanth then eked out a win over Kai Schafer after a sluggish start to give India an unassailable 3-0 lead in the Group C tie.

MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila handed Bjarne Geiss and Jan Colin Voelker a 25-23, 21-15 defeat in the second men’s doubles tie as Indian continued its dominant display.

HS Prannoy ranked 23rd in the world, then hardly broke a sweat as he completed a 5-0 whitewash of Germany, with a 21-9 21-9 win over Matthias Kicklitz.

In the Uber Cup Group D match, double Olympic medallist P V Sindhu gave a flying start to India against Canada with a 21-17 21-10 win over Michelle Li in 33 minutes.

Canada leveled the scores as the Indian doubles pair of Shruti Mishra and Simran Singhi lost 19-21 12-21 to Rachel Honderich and Kristen Tsai.

But after that reverse, the Indians won all the remaining three matches. Aakarshi Kashyap beat Wen Yu Zhang 17-21 21-18 21-17 in women’s singles.

The Indian pair of Tanisha Crasto and Treesa Jolly made it 3-1 with a 21-9 21-15 win over Catherine Choi and Josephine Wu before Ashmita Chaliha completed the formalities with a 12-21 21-11 22-20 victory over Rachel Chan in women’s singles.