Kidambi Srikanth put in a poor performance as India succumbed to Malaysia 1-3 and ultimately won a silver medal in the mixed team badminton event at the Commonwealth Games coming here on Tuesday. Srikanth lost to lower ranked Tze Yong Ng in three matches to put the defending champions on a losing streak in the final. PV Sindhu did what she expected in the women’s singles while the men’s pair of Satwik Sairaj RankSensedy and Chirag Shetty failed in the opening doubles. With the win, Malaysia regained the title they lost to India four years ago on the Gold Coast.
For India to keep the gold, it depends a lot on the results of the men’s doubles match against Rankedlydy and Shetty, and the Olympic bronze medal winning duo of Teng Fong Aaron Chia and Wooi Yik Soh.
Mixed doubles and mixed doubles are India’s weaker links and the team relies on men’s doubles and doubles to get the job done.
The opening session was full of long and tortuous protests but Reddy and Shetty lost most of the time, unable to keep up with Malaysia’s powerful attacking pair.
For a change, the Malaysian crowd is noisier than the Indians, giving a further boost to Chia and Soh. After a tough match, the Malaysians won 21-18, 21-15 to give their team a 1-0 lead In the women’s singles, two-time Olympic medalist Sindhu was Expected to win comfortably but 60th place Goh Jin Wei has made a life. very difficult for world number 7.
Sindhu led 11-6 in the first game but Goh looked like a different player after the interval. She made the former world champion run around the field with her skillful play. Goh came back strong to take the game until the last minute.
Sindhu ended a rally with a left-handed smash from Goh to make it 21-20 before Malaysia’s own goal. Goh continued with the same strategy in the second game, trying to get Sindhu into the net. However, Sindhu was up to the task as she led 11-7 in the second game.
Goh closed the gap after the interval but Sindhu was able to end the match comfortably on this occasion. It was an exhausting affair and Goh gave her everything on court including the final score when she fell to the floor. The final score was 22-20 and 21-17 World number 14 Srikanth had a poor performance in the men’s singles. 42nd ranked Tze Yong Ng had his first match against Srikanth in 3 meetings to feed nasty hopes, The Indian then ran away with the second game to level the match. In the decisive game, Tze led 11-9 in the distance after a few unnecessary mistakes by the Indian player. The score became 16-12 as Srikanth failed to match Tze’s play on the net.
The Malaysian got his first match point after a long rally that saw Srikanth misjudge a baseline pass.
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Srikanth hit a long shot on the spot later to give Malaysia a 2-1 advantage. It was also Tze’s first victory over the former world No. 1 with the final result of 21-19, 6-21, 21-16.
World No. 11 duo Thinaah Muralitharan and Koong Le Pearly Tan excelled against lower-ranked Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly in the women’s doubles, winning 21-18, 21-17 to complete the task.
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