Copenhagen: The India men’s team suffered a 1-3 defeat to formidable Denmark in the quarter-finals to bow out of the Thomas Cup here on Friday.Only the pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty could post a win for India, which made it to the Thomas Cup quarter-finals for the first time since 2010. A struggling Kidambi Srikanth was outplayed by his World No.2 opponent and Tokyo Olympics gold medallist Viktor Axelsen, who won the first match 21-12, 21-13.
The World No.10 men’s doubles combination of Satwiksairaj and Chirag, however, brought India back into the tie with a three-game win over Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen. The India duo won by a scoreline of 21-15, 17-21, 21-18.
But, Denmark regained the lead after World No.3 Anders Antonsen beat B Sai Praneeth 21-8, 21-15 in the second singles match. MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila then lost 16-21, 9-21 to Mathias Christiansen and Frederik Sogaard in the second doubles match to seal the tie in favour of Denmark. In the group stage, India had defeated the Netherlands and Tahiti by identical margins of 5-0 before losing to China 1-4.
The women’s team crashed out of the Uber Cup after losing to Japan in the quarter-finals on Thursday. The Indian women were outplayed by their Japanese opponents, who clinched the tie by establishing a 3-0 advantage.
Malvika Bansod went down 12-21, 17-21 to World No.5 Akane Yamaguchi in the first match that lasted 34 minutes. Tanisha Carsto and Rutaparna Panda suffered an 8-21, 10-21 defeat in doubles against Yuki Fukushima and Mayu Matsumoto as Japan took an easy 2-0 lead. It was the same story for Aditi Bhatt as she was outplayed 16-21, 7-21 by Sayaka Takahashi in the second singles match in 29 minutes.