Sports Desk, AnyTV, Shah Alam (Malaysia)
Published by: swapnil shashank
Updated Thu, 17 Feb 2022 10:24 PM IST
Summary
Badminton Asia Championship: World No. 13 Lakshya Sen got India off to a good start with a 21-19 21-10 win over world No. 17 Lee Cheuk Yiu in 35 minutes.
Lakshya Sen
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Expansion
The Indian men’s team, led by World Championship bronze medalist Lakshya Sen, kept their hopes of a place in the Badminton Asia Team Championships knockout alive with a 3-2 win over Hong Kong in Group A here on Thursday. India Open winners Lakshya, Mithun Manjunath and doubles pair of Hariharan A and Ruben R registered the win for India.
World No. 13 Lakshya Sen got India off to a good start with a 21-19 21-10 win over world No. 17 Lee Cheuk Yiu in 35 minutes. Lau Cheuk Him and Lee Chun Hei Reginald beat the pair of Manjit Singh Khwerakpam and Dinku Singh Konthojam 20-22 21-15 21-18 in a thrilling doubles match to level Hong Kong 1-1.
Despite presenting a tough challenge, Kiran George suffered a 13-21 21-179-21 loss to Chen Yin Chek, giving Hong Kong a 2-1 lead. Hariharan and Reuben, however, beat Chow Hin Long and Liu Chun Wei 21-17 21-16 to level India.
Manjunath, who reached the semi-finals of the Syed Modi Super 300 tournament, then defeated Jason Gunawan 21-14 17-21 21-11 to ensure India’s 3-2 victory. The Indian women’s team also suffered a 2-3 loss against Malaysia in their first match. The team will take on defending champions Japan in their second match on Friday.
Knockout requires victory over Indonesia
However, the team’s path to making the knockouts has become difficult after a crushing 0-5 defeat in the first match against Korea. India are currently ranked third above Hong Kong in Group A with one win and one loss. From Group A, defending champions Indonesia and Korea are currently leading the race for a place in the knockouts.
India will now have to beat defending champions Indonesia on Friday and pray for Korea’s defeat against Hong Kong to make it to the knockouts. Both India and Korea have just won one match and lost one. If both teams register a win on Friday, then it will be seen which team has won and lost more matches and games and Korea is ahead in this matter.