Commonwealth Games 2022 badminton: PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth clinical in India’s 5-0 win over Pakistan
All of India’s wins against Pakistan came in straight games. India will play Sri Lanka and Australia on Saturday.
Defending champions India made light work of their opening contest against arch-rivals Pakistan by winning the Group A tie 5-0 in the Commonwealth Games 2022 mixed team badminton event on Friday.
The badminton events at the CWG 2022 are being held at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre. The five-match India vs Pakistan badminton tie began with the mixed doubles contest featuring India’s two-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist Ashwini Ponnapa and her partner B Sumeeth Reddy taking on Pakistan’s Muhammad Bhatti and Ghazala Siddique.
The Indian pair used their international experience well to defeat their opponents 21-9, 21-12.
World championships silver medallist Kidambi Srikanth was up next against Pakistan’s Murad Ali in the men’s singles match-up.
The Pakistani shuttler had stretched Kidambi Srikanth last time the two badminton players met at the Commonwealth Games in 2018, which the latter won 21-16, 22-20.
However, world No. 11 Kidambi Srikanth, with consistent placements this time, built a healthy lead and squeezed unforced errors from world No. 768 Murad Ali to register an easy 21-7, 21-12 win.
India’s PV Sindhu, seventh in the badminton world rankings, was up next against Olympian Mahoor Shahzad. Last year, Mahoor Shahzad, ranked 175th, created history by becoming the first woman shuttler from Pakistan to make the cut for the Olympics.
However, in the do-or-die match against the two-time Olympic medallist and former world champion PV Sindhu, Mahoor Shahzad could not match the intensity and went down 21-7, 21-6.
“Very excited to play our first match here at the Commonwealth Games,” PV Sindhu told Olympics.com. “I gave my best. We have a pretty strong team, they played well. We have a few more matches left, and it’s not going to be easy but we’ll give our best and play our game."
“There’s no pressure (on being defending CWG team champions),” Sindhu added. “But there’s a sense of confidence that we won last time and move forward accordingly. Each match matters and we won’t take it easy."
With India taking an unassailable 3-0 in the tie, world No. 8 men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty and the women’s pair of Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand also registered convincing victories to help India take maximum points from the tie.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty beat Murad Ali-Muhammad Bhatti 21-12, 21-9 while Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand got the better of Mahoor Shahzad-Ghazala Siddique 21-4, 21-5.
India will now play a doubleheader on Saturday. After taking on Sri Lanka early, India will take on Australia later in the day.
A total of 16 teams are participating in the mixed team event with the top two teams from each group making the knockouts.
The singles and the doubles badminton events at Birmingham 2022 will start on August 3 and will run till August 8.