India to play for 7-8th places in World Jr badminton team event

New Delhi, Nov 4 (UNI) India will play for 7-8th places against Thailand in the team event of the World Junior Badminton Championship at Incheon, Korea.

India finished second in their group, losing 0-3 to Korea and went out of semi-final contention in the four-group team event in which each country was to play two singles (boys and girls) and three doubles (boys, girls and mix).

In the 5-6th playoff, India lost to Japan 1-3 with only Saina Nehwal registering an easy 21-9, 21-13 win over Yukina Oku in girls singles.

Srujan Nandaluri was no match to Kenichi Tago, losing 10-21, 10-21 in boys singles while boys doubles pair of Jishnu Sanyal and Akshay Dewalker went down fighting 24-26, 16-21 to Naohiro Matsukawa and Kazuya Itani and mix double pair of Ashwini Ponappa and RMV Tarun losing 11-21, 15-21 to Takuma Ueda and Megumi Taruno.

Earlier, India topped the sub-group before eventually losing to Korea, beating Germany 3-2, Vietnam 5-0 and Macau 5-0, according to information received here today.

Against the Germans, Saina and Srujan Nandaluri both recorded convincing wins in the girls and boys singles while girls double pair of Nitya Sosale and Ashwini Ponappa carved out a hard fought 21-15, 19-21, 21-17 win against Lisa Deichgraeber and Neele Voigt.

But, boys doubles pair of Jishnu Sanyal and Akshay Dewalker lost to Peter Kaesbauer and Sebastian Rduch 10-21, 20-22 and mix doubles pair of Ashwini Ponappa and Tarun met with the same fate against Peter Kaesbauer and Julia Schmidt 15-21, 16-21.

Against the Vietnamese also, Srujan Nandaluri and Saina had no problem outplaying their opponents. Gurusai Datt and RMV Tarun (boys doubles), Nitya Sosale and Ashwini Ponappa (girls doubles) and Ashwini Ponappa and Akshay Dewalker (mix doubles) also recorded easy straight set wins against their rivals.

India were then awarded 5-0 victory against Macau after the latter did not take field.

Meanwhile, Korea and China will clash in the final tomorrow after they registered an identical 3-1 margin victory over Malaysia and Indonesia respectively in the semi-finals. Japan and Singapore -- winner over Thailand -- will face each other for 5-6th palyoff.

The individual events of the championship will begin from Monday and the finals will be played on November 11.

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