Thomas Cup: India off to a fine start

BANGKOK: The India men’s badminton team began its Thomas Cup campaign in an emphatic manner, thrashing Germany 5-0 here on Sunday.

Lakshya Sen started the proceedings with an easy 21-16, 21-13 win over Max Weisskirchen. The doubles pairing 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. But, the Indians managed to prevail by a scoreline of 21-15, 10-21, 21-13.

Kidambi Srikanth then eked out an 18-21, 21-9, 21-11 win over Kai Schafer 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 match as India continued its dominant display.

Finally, HS Prannoy hardly broke a sweat as he completed a 5-0 whitewash of Germany, with a 21-9, 21-9 win over Matthias Kicklitz.