NEW DELHI, Oct 21: The Indian team notched up a 4-1 win over Germany to sign off at the 13th position at the World Junior Mixed Team Badminton Championships in Santander, Spain on Friday.
Mixed doubles pair of Samarveer and Radhika Sharma starting the proceedings, beating Germany’s Jarne Schlevoigt and Julia Meyer 21-18 21-16 to give India a 1-0 lead in the five-match play-offs for 13-16 positions.
In men’s singles, Bharat Raghav saw off Germany’s Sanjeevi Padmanabhan Vasudevan 14-21 21-17 21-8 in a thrilling match to make it 2-0 in India’s favour.
Men’s doubles combination of Arsh Mohammad and Abhinav Thakur, however, went down 14-21 22-24 to Jonathan Dresp and Simon Krax as Germany made a comeback.
But Odisha Open winner Unnati Hooda crushed all hopes with a 21-8 21-6 win over Germany’s Selin Hubsch and then women’s pair of Shreya Balaji and Srinidhi Narayan prevailed 21-13 21-13 over Julia Meyer and Cara Siebrecht to end the lop-sided contest.
On Thursday, India lost 1-3 to Malaysia.
Junior world number 3 Anupama Upadhyaya was the sole Indian to win her fixture on Thursday.
In the men’s singles, Ayush Shetty went down to Justin Hoh 21-6 12-21 19-21 to give Malaysia the lead.
However, Anupama was able to restore parity by eking out a 21-14 21-15 win over Siti Nurshuhaini in the women’s singles.
But the men’s double pair of Nicholas Raj and Tushar Suveer was not able to carry forward the momentum and received a 9-21 7-21 thrashing at the hands of Fazriq Mohamad Razif and Wong Vin Sean.
With India trailing 1-2, the women’s doubles pair of Isharani Baruah and Devika Sihag fought hard but crumbled under pressure, going down 10-21 21-14 13-21 to Ong Xin Yee and Carmen Ting.
India had finished behind China in the second position in their group. Only the teams finishing at the top qualifies for the quarterfinals, while the second-placed sides compete for places 9-16. (PTI)
Follow our WhatsApp channel