Even two wins out of three matches proved not enough for the shuttler duo of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy to qualify for the badminton men’s doubles quarter finals at the Tokyo Olympics.
Ranked 10th in the world, the Indians beat the world No. 18 team of Englishmen Ben Lane and Sean Vendy 21-17, 21-19 in a 44-minute Group A match at the Musashino Forest Plaza on Tuesday.
However, they couldn’t make it to the knockout stage as they finished third in their group behind the top-ranked Indonesian team of Marcus Gideon Fernaldi and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo and world No.3 pair of Yang Lee and Chi-Lin Wang of Taiwan.
All three teams finished on same points with two wins each and when the number of games won was considered to identify the qualifiers, the Indians lost out.
Shooters off target
Indian shooters endured yet another forgettable outing. In the 10m air pistol mixed team event, Saurabh Chaudhary and Manu Bhaker finished seventh in Qualification 2 after topping the first phase with 582. Abhishek Verma and Yashaswini Singh Deswal, failed to clear Qualification 1 and finished in 17th place, having totalled 564.
In the 10m air rifle mixed team event, the duo of Elavenil Valarivan and Divyansh Singh Panwar finished 12th with a total of 626.5, while Anjum Moudgil and Deepak Kumar ended 18th out of 29 pairs with an aggregate score of 623.8.
Shocked by the debacle, the Indian shooting federation has promised an “overhaul” of the coaching staff. “Definitely the performances have not been on expected lines and I have spoken of an overhaul of coaching and support staff,” National Rifle Association of India Raninder Singh said.
Sailors disappoint
Indian sailors Vishnu Saravanan and Nethra Kumanan finished way behind the leaders as they ended at 22nd and 33rd spot in the respective events after six races.
Saravanan finished 23rd and 22nd in the fifth and sixth race in the men’s laser event while Kumanan was 32nd and 38th in the two races of the women’s laser radial event held at Enoshima Yacht Harbour on Tuesday.
India watch: Wednesday
- Hockey — Women’s Pool A, vs Great Britain (6.30am)
- Badminton — Women’s singles group play (7.30am)
- Archery — Men’s individual 1/32 eliminations (7.31am)
- Rowing — Men’s double sculls semi-final A/B 2 (8am)
- Sailing — Men’s 49er, race 2,3,4 (8.35am)
- Archery — Men’s individual 1/32 eliminations (12.30pm)
- Archery — Women’s individual 1/32 eliminations (2.14pm)
- Badminton — Men’s singles group play (2.30pm)
- Boxing — Women’s 75kg preliminaries, round of 16 (2.33pm)
All timings in IST