Former national coach Vimal Kumar believes that a maiden medal at the Asian Badminton Mixed Team Championship (ABC) indicates that India can win the Sudirman Cup title this year. India’s campaign at the Asian Badminton Mixed Team Championships ended with a 2-3 defeat to China in the semi-finals but the country managed to win a bronze medal for the first time. It was a remarkable performance for India as top doubles player Satwiksairaj Rankireddy was not part of the team due to injury.
In his absence, the men’s pair of Chirag Shetty and Dhruv Kapila and the young women’s doubles pair of Trisha Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand produced impressive performances to take India to the semi-finals. Vimal told ‘PTI-Bhasha’, ‘We will have a strong doubles pair after Satwik comes back. Our singles players have always been strong. HS Prannoy and PV Sindhu are capable of beating anyone. So I think we have a good chance of winning the Sudirman Cup.
Vimal, who was with the Indian team when they won the Thomas Cup last year, said, “Women’s doubles also showed a lot of improvement in their game. Trisha and Gayathri, in particular, would have taken a lot of confidence from beating Malaysia’s top doubles pair (world no.4 Tan Pearly and Thinah Muralitharan). Now we cannot say that it is very ambitious (winning the Sudirman Cup). we can win. Just like we did in the Thomas Cup. We can expect after this performance.
The Sudirman Cup is a global mixed team competition. India on Friday assured themselves of their first continental bronze medal after defeating Hong Kong in the quarter-finals at the Asian Badminton Mixed Team Championships. The feat helped India qualify directly for the Sudirman Cup to be held in Suzhou, China from May 14 to 21. Vimal said, “It was a good bronze medal. Although I am a little disappointed because yesterday we had a great chance to beat China. Defeating China would have been great. This is the first time in history that we have come so close to defeating them. We have always struggled in the mixed team event before this.
He said that India had a chance to win the tournament as the team had defeated Malaysia and Hong Kong. “It was a strong performance by both the men’s and women’s doubles pairs. I would give them a lot of credit. We didn’t play as expected in singles. We were generally strong in the singles events but the doubles pairs without Satwik did well against Hong Kong and China. The women’s doubles in particular showed remarkable improvement.
The former veteran said, “It is disappointing that we lost in singles, if one of them had won their match, we would have reached the final. HS Prannoy was defeated by Lei Lan Zi 13-21, 15-21 in the opening men’s singles match in just 45 minutes and two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu was defeated by Gao Fang Zi in one hour and 10 minutes in the women’s singles match. Had to face defeat. Due to this the Indian team was behind 0-2. But the doubles teams put up a fine performance to level the score at 2-2.
The men’s doubles pair of Dhruv Kapila and Chirag Shetty then defeated Jin Ting and Zhou Hao Dong 21-19, 21-19. Women’s doubles pair of Trisha Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand defeated Liu Sheng Shu and Tan Ning 21-18 13-21 21-19 to level the scores 2-2. Then all eyes were on the mixed doubles pair of Ishaan Bhatnagar and Tanisha Crasto but Jiang Zhen Bang and Wei Ya Jin proved too strong in the decider as they won it 21-17 21-13 in just 34 minutes.
