Indian men’s team earned a hard-fought consolation win in their last pool encounter against Germany and ended their Thomas Cup campaign on a winning note.
After K Srikant (Singles) and Akshay Dewalker-Pranaav Jerry Chopra (Doubles) pulled off their matches, India’s biggest positive of the tournament — RMV Gurusaidutt — won the decider in a sensational manner to help the hosts win 3-2 and finish third in their group at the Siri Fort Sports Complex here on Wednesday.
In a contest between the teams who were already out of the quarterfinals race following their lossess to Malaysia and Korea, the pride was at stake.
Youngster K Srikant, who had earlier lost both his matches, provided a good start with a 21-18, 18-21, 21-18 win over Germany’s Marc Zwiebler. World No 18 Srikant had to punch above his weight against the world No 13 German and the victory was necessary to give the team confidence.
The 1-0 lead, however, was immediately neutralised by the German pair of Michael Fuchs-Johannes Schoettler’s win over Manu Attri-B Sumeet Reddy 21-15, 21-6 in a 26-minute encounter.
later, Paruapalli Kashayp’s inconsistency continued as the Indian skipper lost to much-lowly ranked Dieter Domke 21-23, 21-14, 19-21. The loss of the world No 21 Indian against the world No 59 forced India to trail 1-2. “I slowed down in the second half of the third game and also he (Domke) played some really good strokes. After my loss during the tie against Malaysia, I played better against Korea. And today I lost. I think I was good in patches and need to be more consistent,” Kashyap said after the match.
However, Dewalker-Chopra pair infused life into Indian camp with a surprising 21-9, 17-21, 21-19 win over Peter Kaesbauer-Josche Zorwonne and brought India back in the game after which Guru played with a lot of valour and pride.
The win over lukas Schimidt was the world No 30 Indian’s third in a row. After dropping the first game 14-21, he managed to gather his steam and courage to pull through 21-19, 21-19 shorelines to help India seal the match. “We needed this win badly after losing both the matches against Malaysia and Korea. Today, I started my game badly. I was neither getting any kind of momentum nor getting any strokes. I had to hang in there and fight it through. Today, the crowd was very supportive and their support really pumped me up,” Guru said after the match.
Skipper Kashyap said that since their doubles pairs are not upto mark, there was a lot of pressure on the singles players to win all the singles matches. Vimal Kumar, coach of the Indian team rued the fact that Srikant failed to win against Korea which could have forced their entry into the quarter-finals.
Against Koreans, we could have pulled it off. Had Srikant would have won, it would have been different. That loss was a bit disappointing. I think he (Srikant) felt the pressure of playing for a team at such a big stage,” Vimal told reporters after the match.
The coach also felt that India need to have more doubles players to do well at such team events.Overall, Kashyap’s inconsistency, Srikant’s inexperience, doubles pair ineffectiveness were the reasons for India’s failure in reaching quarters. Only positive was Guru’s performance.Indian women’s team play their Uber Cup quarterfinal match on Thursday.