Badminton Asia Team Championship: India loses to Japan, but moves into quarter-finals

Sindhu extended her domination over World No.2 Akane Yamaguchi with a straight-game win. Despite the loss, India qualified for the quarter-final in both the women’s and men’s competition. 

The Indian women finished second in Group W with one win and one loss ahead of Hong Kong China but behind Japan. The Sindhu-led squad had defeated Hong Kong China 3-2 in its opening group tie. 

Taking the court first, Olympic silver-medallist Sindhu dished out a fine attacking performance to beat Yamaguchi 21- 19 21-15 in 36 minutes. By virtue of this win, world No.4 Sindhu now enjoys a 5-3 head-to-head record against Yamaguchi. 

However, Sindhu did not get enough support from her teammates as Sri Krishna Priya Kudaravalli was no match for world No.13 Sayaka Sato, losing the second singles 12-21 10-21 to help Japan draw level. Doubles specialist Ashwini Ponnappa was then tamed 14-21 12-21 by world No.16 Aya Ohori in the third singles match as Japan took a 2-1 lead. 

The onus was on Sanyogita Ghorpade and Prajakta Sawant to draw parity for India but they lost 17-21 17-21 against Shiho Tanaka and Koharu Yonemoto in the first doubles match to hand Japan an unassailable 3-1 lead. 

The script turned out to be the same for India in the last match of the tie as Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy lost 18-21 18-21 to Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi.