Defending champions India suffered a 3-1 loss to Malaysia in the final of the badminton mixed team event at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham on Tuesday.
India's hopes of retaining their title was, thus, put to a halt by the Malaysians who displayed an overall better performance. In fact, India had won the mixed team event in the 2018 edition of the tournament in Gold Coast against the same opponents.
PV Sindhu's win in the women's singles match was the lone silver lining in what was a disappointing outing for the Indians.
India did not have the best of starts as the doubles pair of Satwik Sairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty went down 21-18, 21-15 to the Malaysian duo of Teng Fong Aaron Chia and Wooi Yik Soh in the first match of the mixed team final.
Satwik and Chirag struggled to get a breakthrough as the Malaysians dominated the game for most of the part to give Singapore a 1-0 lead.
However, the tide turned in India’s favour when the poster girl of Indian badminton, PV Sindhu, took on the court to face Goh Jin Wei in the women’s singles encounter.
After a close first set, the 27-year-old bounced back to dominate proceedings and inflict a 22-20, 21-17 defeat on Wei, who tried her best to put up a fight.
The lanky shuttler's powerful smashes proved a little too hot to handle for her Malaysian opponent as India got back into the game to level the scores at 1-1.
However, India suffered a setback soon after as Kidambi Srikanth lost the men's singles tie against a lower ranked Tze Yong Ng. The Malaysian was in the form of his life, overpowering Srikanth 21-19, 6-21, 21-16 in what turned out to be a thriller of a contest.
The 29-year-old Indian made a lot of errors in the game and was far from his best which ultimately proved costly as India went 2-1 behind.
It all came crashing down for the Indians as the 19-year-old duo of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand lost to Malaysia's Koong Lee Pearly Tan and Muralitharan Tinaah 21-18, 21-17 in the women's doubles rubber.
Despite their inexperience, the young girls showed a lot of heart and character in the decider. However, it was too late as Malaysians looked in total control before wrapping up the final 3-1 in their country's favour.
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