Commonwealth Games 2022 badminton mixed team final: India lose to Malaysia and settle for silver
PV Sindhu was the only Indian to register a win in the five-match tie. Kidambi Srikanth, and the men’s and women’s doubles teams lost their contests.
Pre-tournament favourites India were handed an astonishing 3-1 defeat by Malaysia in the final of the Commonwealth Games 2022 mixed team badminton event in Birmingham on Tuesday.
Playing in front of a deafening crowd at the National Exhibition Centre, the five-match India vs Malaysia badminton tie started with the Tokyo 2020 bronze medallists Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik beating India’s Thomas Cup heroes Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty 21-18, 21-15.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty matched the Malaysian pair for every stride and looked set to go one-up leading 18-15 in the first game.
Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik, however, snatched away the victory by scoring six successive points and taking the 1-0 lead.
The Malaysians cramped the Indian pair for room in the second game and despite Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty engaging in long exchanges, including a 43-shot rally, the Olympic medallists helped Malaysia take the all-important lead.
With Malaysia boasting a strong doubles contingent, two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu was expected to deliver a straightforward win for India against the out-of-form reigning Youth Olympic Games champion Goh Jin Wei in the women’s singles contest.
However, multiple unforced errors by PV Sindhu made it anything but one-way traffic.
Down 18-12, Goh Jin Wei won seven straight points to nearly pull off a major upset.
It took PV Sindhu some time, which included winning a 37-shot rally, but the former world champion eventually managed to take a 1-0 lead and calm the nerves.
PV Sindhu found her fluency in the second game and countered Goh Jin Wei’s exquisite cross-court drop shots to restore parity for India in the gold medal match.
Kidambi Srikanth, 13th in the badminton world rankings, was next against world No. 42 NG Tze Yong in the third match.
A close battle ensued between both players who could find a breakthrough in the first game. However, at 18-all, NG Tze Yong unleashed a series of quick returns to take a surprise lead in the match.
Kidambi Srikanth, a world championships silver medallist, played up to his potential in the second match to bring it back to square one.
NG Tze Yong, who had lost both the matches against Kidambi Srikanth previously, then scripted one of the most memorable wins of his career to bring Malaysia to the cusp of regaining the title.
In the fourth and do-or-die match for India, India’s most inexperienced link in the tie - the 19-year-olds Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand - fought hard against the world No. 11 pair of Thinaah Muralitharan and Pearly Tan.
However, the experienced women’s doubles pair of Thinaah Muralitharan and Pearly Tan, despite the latter battling injury, denied the Indians any openings and won the match 21-18, 21-17 to win the title for Malaysia.
At the last edition of the Commonwealth Games badminton mixed team final, India had beaten Malaysia in the final with the same margin.
The singles and the doubles badminton competitions at the Commonwealth Games will start on Wednesday.