The Indian team notched up a 4-1 win over Germany to sign off at the 13th position at the World Junior Mixed Team Badminton Championships in Santander, Spain on Friday.
- Advertisement -
Mixed doubles pair of Samarveer and Radhika Sharma starting the proceedings, beating Germany’s Jarne Schlevoigt and Julia Meyer 21-18 21-16 to give India a 1-0 lead in the five-match play-offs for 13-16 positions. In men’s singles, Bharat Raghav saw off Germany’s Sanjeevi Padmanabhan Vasudevan 14-21 21-17 21-8 in a thrilling match to make it 2-0 in India’s favour. Men’s doubles combination of Arsh Mohammad and Abhinav Thakur, however, went down 14-21 22-24 to Jonathan Dresp and Simon Krax as Germany made a comeback.
But Odisha Open winner Unnati Hooda crushed all hopes with a 21-8 21-6 win over Germany’s Selin Hubsch and then women’s pair of Shreya Balaji and Srinidhi Narayan prevailed 21-13 21-13 over Julia Meyer and Cara Siebrecht to end the lop-sided contest. On Thursday, India lost 1-3 to Malaysia. Junior world number 3 Anupama Upadhyaya was the sole Indian to win her fixture on Thursday. In the men’s singles, Ayush Shetty went down to Justin Hoh 21-6 12-21 19-21 to give Malaysia the lead.
However, Anupama was able to restore parity by eking out a 21-14 21-15 win over Siti Nurshuhaini in the women’s singles. But the men’s double pair of Nicholas Raj and Tushar Suveer was not able to carry forward the momentum and received a 9-21 7-21 thrashing at the hands of Fazriq Mohamad Razif and Wong Vin Sean. With India trailing 1-2, the women’s doubles pair of Isharani Baruah and Devika Sihag fought hard but crumbled under pressure, going down 10-21 21-14 13-21 to Ong Xin Yee and Carmen Ting.
- Advertisement -
India had finished behind China in the second position in their group. Only the teams finishing at the top qualifies for the quarterfinals, while the second-placed sides compete for places 9-16.
