The Indian men and women’s badminton teams made emphatic starts in the Thomas and Uber Cup, thrashing Germany and Canada, respectively, here on Sunday. While the men’s team won its 5-0 Group C Thomas Cup encounter, the women counterparts emerged 4-1 victorious in Group D Uber Cup face-off.
World Championships bronze medallist Lakshya Sen started the proceeding with a 21-16, 21-13 win over world No. 64 Max Weisskirchen.
The doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirsg Shetty had to dig deep as they were stretched to a three gamer by Jones Ralfy Jansen and Marvin Seidel. But the Indians managed to prevail 21-15, 10-21, 21-13 in the match lasting close to an hour.
World No. 11 Kidambi Srikanth then eked out a 18-21, 21-9, 21-11 win over Kai Schafer after a sluggish start to give India an unassailable 3-0 lead in the Group C tie.
MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila handed Bjarne Geiss and Jan Colin Voelker a 25-23, 21-15 defeat in the second men’s doubles tie as the Indians continued their dominant display. HS Prannoy, ranked 23rd in the world, then hardly broke a sweat as he completed a 5-0 whitewash of Germany, with a 21-9, 21-9 win over Matthias Kicklitz.
In Uber Cup, P V Sindhu gave India a flying with a 21-17, 21-10 win over Michelle Li in 33 minutes. Canada levelled scores as the Indian doubles pair of Shruti Mishar and Simran Singhi lost 19-21, 12-21 to Rachel Honderich and Kristen Tsai.
But after that reverse, the Indians won the remaining three matches.