Badminton
BWF Junior Mixed Team C'ships: India defeat USA in 5-8th place thriller
Despite trailing for most of the tie, a huge win in the last game gave India the victory. India will face Chinese Taipei next.
Indian junior mixed team at the BWF Mixed Team Championships 2024 in China. (Photo Credit: BAI Media/x)
The Indian junior mixed team defeated the USA 110-101 in the 5th-8th place classification match at the 2024 BWF Junior Mixed Team Championships, in China, on Friday.
India will now play the fifth place tie against Chinese Taipei on Saturday.
The tie against the USA started well for India with Dhruv Negi winning against Garret Tan 11-9, but what followed next was a string of defeats for the Indian shuttlers.
It started with doubles pairing Chloe Ho and Stella Pan beating Taarini Suri and Shravani Walekar, followed by Nicole Krawczyk's defeat of Tanvi Sharma.
The gap between the teams increased to 10 points after three games, with Team USA leading 33-23.
At the halfway stage, the score was 55-52 in favour of the Team USA. From there onwards, they started increasing their lead.
After seven games, the Americans were 77-64 ahead, but thanks to Tanvi Sharma, who scored 17 points in her match against Veronica Yang, the USA's lead came down to seven after the eight-game, with India trailing 81-88.
After the end of the penultimate and ninth game of the match, the score was in favour 99-95 in favor of the USA.
Heading into the final game, the doubles pairing of Bhavya Chhabra and Param Choudhary performed brilliantly, grabbing 15 points and conceding just two to USA's Kai Chong and Kyle Wang, completing an incredible 110-101 comeback victory for India.
India lost to Indonesia on Thursday in the quarterfinals 92-110 after a strong performance in the group stages.
A win against Chinese Taipei on Saturday would a confirm fifth place for India in the prestigious tournament.
