Badminton Asia Team Championships

[Sin Hombre]

Unfortunately we are drawn with China in both the the men and the women.

Our group in men is China (#1 seed), India (#5), HK (#9). We can beat China with some luck but probably a 10% chance. We need to beat HK to enter the last 8. HK has #13 and #21 in singles.

Group A runner-up will play the winner of Group winner which would be Malaysia (#4) or Taiwan (#6). Both are beatable tbh.

The women have PV Sindhu returning from injury. We are the #6 seed vs China's #1. No other team in the group so we will qualify for the quarters.

Women will play Indonesia in the quarters which is a guaranteed loss.

This is an Olympic qualification tournament so we need to do well.

[sameerph]

It begins tomorrow. India vs China tomorrow in women which is almost an impossible match to win and India vs Hongkong in men which is very critical match for getting to QF.

[Sin Hombre]

Some return to competitive badminton from Sindhu as she beat Chinese #1 and world #8 Han Yue in straights to give India a 1-0 lead.

Unfortunately and unsurprisingly Ashwini and Tanisha lost in straights to Chinese #4 pair and the tie is 1-1.

I think that should be it for our chances. Our only hopes were for Ashwini/Tanisha and Treesa/Gayatri to both pull out upsets.

Ashmita plays Chinese world #9 next and that should be an easy win for the Chinese.

[rajitghosh]

India may have missed a trick by not including Malvka Bansod. Among the woman players she is in reasonably good form.

[Sin Hombre]

Malvika has no chance against top-10 players. I don't think she has ever beaten anyone in the top-20. Not that anyone else has done that either - none of them is ever going to be a top player. Next gen of Unnati, Anmol, Manvi, Tanvi are much better prospects.

China somehow didn't play their WR #1 or #5 in the second doubles and Treesa and Gayatri beat similarly ranked Chinese pair in three games to make it 2-2.

I don't think neither China nor us expected this to go to game 5 so it is two very unlikely players playing the decisive match.

We have 22-year old unheralded Chinese Luo Yu playing our 16-year old national champion Anmol Kharb.

[Sin Hombre]

This is pretty much a Chinese B team. They played their #2 and #5 in the doubles (and they have 3 of the world top-5) and are playing their #3, #4 and #9 in singles (and they have 4 of the world ranking top-10). They have actually brought a weak team here.

[Sin Hombre]

Anmol wins the first game 22-20 and I am going to sleep.

Unfortunately HSP has lost his first game to fellow veteran Ng Angus (WR #22).

[arjun2761]

Still a stunning performance by INDIA so far. Even with the B team they would have been favored in probably the first four matches. Not sure about their fifth player. Perhaps, they don’t have much at stake having qualified for the Olympics. Hope we can close out the upset!

[rajitghosh]

India just beat China. Even though it is a B team it is a great achievement since lot of Chinese players tend to be under ranked.

In the meantime Prannoy lost his singles match to a lower ranked player. Hope we can pull through aainst Hong Kong.

[arjun2761]

SatChi and Lakshya Sen win their matches, so India are now 2-1 on HKG. Arjun/Kapila up next and Srikanth after that.

[sameerph]

Excellent upset win by women over China. 16 year Anmol Kharab will get a huge boost of confidence with this deciding win over a Chinese top player, also Sindhu has a great restart to her pro career. Tresa-Gayatri had a good win as well.

Hope men complete their win over Hongkong.

[prasen9]

Fantastic. That is not kharab at all.

[sameerph]

Men also beat Hongkong 4-1 with only Prannoy losing his match.

Both teams are thru to the QF. Women are assured of topping the group while for men our tomorrow's match against China will decide the group topper.

[arjun2761]

Good to see our men comeback to win. Disappointing loss by Prannoy who is becoming less and less of an Olympic medal prospect for us even though it looks like he will be our representative in mens singles. On the other hand, Sindhu seems to be rising into big tournament form which is great to see!

[Sin Hombre]

Unfortunately this tournament is less valuable than I was expecting.

It serves two purpose - Thomas and Uber cup qualification. We are already qualified for the Thomas Cup and will get into the Uber cup based off rankings though one more win in the quarterfinal will automatically qualify us.

Ranking points are given per match so even if we got to the finals, Sindhu would only get to play 4 matches which won't be sufficient to get enough ranking points. It would have been different if this was a 4-team group with 3 round robin matches.