World Junior Team Championships: Indian shuttlers lose to Malaysia, out of medal contention

India’s winning run at the BWF World Junior Mixed Team Championships 2017 came to an end after a 0-3 loss to Malaysia in the quarter-finals at Yogjakarta, Indonesia on Thursday. With this loss, India also goes out of medal contention at this event.

The young Indian shuttlers had been in fine form until this match and had taken the 5/8th seeded India to the top of the Group D standings. But they came a cropper against the 3/4th seeded Malaysia, who thoroughly outclassed them in every department and did not even concede a game.

Malaysia’s mixed doubles duo of Eng Cheong Ng and Sueh Jeou Tan started off the proceedings to record a comfortable 21-18, 21-10 victory over the Indian combine of Dhruv Kapila and Mithula UK in a 28-minute contest.

All hopes were then riding on the junior World No. 2 Lakshya Sen to put India back into contention. But the fifth ranked Jun Hao Leong proved to be a tough customer. The young Malaysian produced the impeccable form that had taken him to the Asian Junior Individual Championships title in July and came away a 21-13, 21-15 winner over Sen in 34 minutes.

In women’s singles, World No. 4 Goh Jin Wei turned out to be an insurmountable barrier for Ashmita Chaliha, who had so far been unbeaten at the 2017 World Junior Team Championships. The Malaysian needed just 28 minutes to pull off a 21-12, 21-12 win and shut out any chance that India was hoping to have.

India will now take on France for the fifth place play-off.

India had been unbeaten in group stage

Earlier, the Indian team had registered wins over Australia, Hungary, USA and Sweden to finish atop the Group D standings. While they were flawless against the first three and secured 5-0 wins, the Indian shuttlers dropped two matches against the 9/16th seeded Sweden.

The Bulgarian Open winner Lakshya Sen too remained unbeaten until the quarter-finals with two wins in men’s singles and a win in men’s doubles.

Indian juniors were looking to continue their medal-winning spree after an unprecedented haul of four medals at the Asian Junior U-17 and U-15 Championships last week where 14-year-old Samiya Imad Farooqui captured the U-15 women’s singles gold.