Badminton Asia Team C'ship: Indian men's team defeats Hong Kong

India men's badminton team clinched a comfortable victory over Hong Kong in the group stage match and booked a place in the quarters of the Badminton Asia Team Championship in Shah Alam, Malaysia on Wednesday.

The team led by the world no.1 pair of Satwik Sairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty came from one point behind to clinch the (4-1) victory with four back-to-back wins in this group A encounter against Hong Kong.

The tie started with the top draw clash between India no.1, HS. Prannoy and world rank.22 Ng Ka Long Angus. This was the 13th meeting between the two players with a head-to-head record of 6 wins each.

Angus trumped Prannoy today with a straight-game win (21-18, 21-14) who looked out of focus today with many errors sideways.

Prannoy didn't look comfortable in any of the games and hence dropped the match very easily in front of a formidable opponent, which gave Hong Kong an early advantage going forward into the tie.

The second match of the tie was the men's double clash of Satwik Sairaj Rankireddy, and Chirag Shetty against a scratch pairing of Lui Chun Wei and Yeung Shing Choi.

The Hong Kong pair started the game very solidly with a 6-2 lead, which later gradually decreased by the Indian pair to equal the score at 10-10. After this, the world no.1 wasn't looked back and took the game 21-16.

The second game was also very close till the mid-game interval but the Indian pair took the game rather comfortably with eight straight points in the end to equal the tie score at 1-1.

Then, Lakshya Sen gave India the lead in the tie with a straight-game (21-14, 21-9) comfortable win over world no.90 Chan Yin Chak in a match that lasted for only 35 minutes.

Lakshya was looking very comfortable with his defense on Chan's attacking play and also found accurate shots on the counter to make this a much easier match in the second game.

India confirmed their victory with the third-straight win in the second doubles match where M.R. Arjun and Dhruv Kapila humbed (21-12, 21-7) their inexperienced opponent of Chow Him Long and Hung Kuei Chun.

They were not allowed any space for their opponent in either of the games and clinched victory after losing just 19 points in the whole match. Their win also confirms the victory for the Indian team in this group-stage clash.

This was the second back-to-back defeat for the Hong Kong pair in the group stage which also means that India and China have qualified for the quarterfinals from Group A as the best two teams.

Kidambi Srikanth finished off the formality with a straight-game (21-14, 21-18) win over Jason Gunawan in the fifth and final match of the tie to claim a 4-1 victory.

India will face China in their second group match tomorrow at 10:30 PM IST to decide the winner of Group A.

The team will be aiming for a win tomorrow following the footsteps of the women's team who already upset China in a close match (3-2) earlier today in this morning.