China trash India 5-0 in badminton team opener

Doha, Nov 30 (UNI) Spearheaded by world champion Lin Dan, China taught India a lesson or two, thrashing them 5-0 in the men's team event of the badminton competition of the Asian Games here today.

The superbly fit Chinese dominated the court and exposed the Indians' weakness in every department of the Game.

Anup Sridhar, P Kashyap and Nikhil Kanetkar could not pose any threat in singles while in doubles, it was the same story as learnt the Sanave Thomas-Rupesh Kumar and V Diju-S Vidyadhar pairs as China issued a warning that they are eyeing all the Golds at stake in this event.

Anup Sridhar was pitted against world number one Lin Dan and the Indian did put up a resolute fight but that was just not enough to halt his 23-year-old Chinese rival.

In a 28-minute encounter, Anup battled it neck-and-neck in the first set, in which lead kept changing before Lin applied the kill and smashed his way to claim the first game.

The first game lasted 16 minutes but by the time second started, the Indian looked tired and out of breath and the Chinese wrapped it up in 12 minutes to emerge winner 21-19, 21-11.

This was was followed by doubles and Sanave Thomas and Rupesh Kumar were woefully inadequate to take on Yun Cai and Fu Haifeng.

This match ended in just 19 minutes with the Indian duo managing only 19 points in two games.

Cai and Haifeng took the first game in nine minutes and second in 10 minutes to win the match 21-8, 21-11 and give their side a 2-0 lead.

Parupalli Kashyap played well in the second singles against Jin Chen. The Indian looked unsettled in the first game which he conceded tamely in just nine minutes but put up a much-improved performance in the next to battle it out for 21 minute before going down 7-21, 19-21 as the Chinese took the unbeatable 3-0 lead.

But as per the rules of the International Badminton Federation (IBF), teams have to complete all the five matches even if the last two are dead rubber.

So in the fourth match, which was the second doubles, V Diju and S Vidhyadhar tried to put up a semblance of fight against the Guo Zhenndong-Xie Zhongbo pair. The match lasted 22 minutes and the Indians garnered 26 points in two games before losing the match 18-21, 8-21.

The Chinese, having taken a 4-0 lead, showed no mercy as Bao Chunlai outlasted Nikhil Kanetkar in just 22 minutes.

Bao, who had beaten Lin Dan this year, was too strong for Nikhil and raced to 21-14, 21-12 win to leave the Indians pondering over this comprehensive trouncing.

Anup Sridhar was very candid after his match against the World championship saying he played very ordinary.

''My performance was quite ordinary. I should have probably won the first game. Dan was pretty fast in the second, may be my prepration was not good enough.

He, however, asserted that he was not overawed by his rival's reputation.

''I kept my nerves. I did not have any thing to lose against him,'' he said.

Lin Dan was quite frank as he said, ''Our level of skill is much higher (than the Indians)'' and felt the match took so long because ''there was a little bit of wind flowing around the venue from the ventillation.'' UNI HSB AY RS1527