Uber Cup
On 20th May, 2016, Indian women’s team won the bronze medal in Uber Cup for a second successive time in a row. In the last edition in New Delhi, the Indian women’s team clinched a historic bronze medal. It was a spirited repeat performance by the Indian women’s team who played excellent badminton in the entire tournament.
In the league stage, the Indian women’s team won first 2 matches easily against Germany and Australia and lost to Japan in the last league match by 2-3. In the quarter-finals, they upset the fourth-ranked Thailand team by defeating 3-1. It was an outstanding performance by the Indian team against Thailand. Despite Saina losing her match and the first for the day, PV Sindhu, the doubles pair of Ashwini and Jwala and most crucially the unranked Gadde produced an excellent result to surprise the Thailand team . In the semi-finals, the onus was on Sindhu and Saina to put pressure on the Chinese team. Both Indian players had their chances but could not capitalize the same. The doubles pair of Jwala and Sikki were no match to the Chinese pair as they lost 6-21,6-21.
Sindhu was the best player on show with excellent performances in the tournament winning 4 and losing only 1 match. In the semi-finals too, Sindhu was leading 18-8 in the second set but unforced errors cost her and the Indian team the match and also the semi-finals. Saina had a mixed bag tournament losing 2 matches and winning 3. The third singles player Gadde also performed well in the tournament winning three out of four matches she played, and beating the higher ranked Jindapol in the quarter-finals.
The main problem in this tournament was Indian doubles pairs. The Indian team kept changing their doubles combination in almost every match that did not fructify to any success. The regular pair of Jwala / Ashwini did an excellent job by winning 3 out of 3 matches . Sikki / Jwala did not succeed as a pair. The second doubles pair of Ashwini and Sindhu played an excellent match against Japan but never got a second chance.
It was an exceptional performance by the Indian women’s to win their second successive medal in a row which shows that Indian women’s badminton is on the upswing. The doubles pairing needs consistent performance in order to compete with the world’s best.
Thomas Cup
The Indian men’s team disappointed Indian badminton fans as they did not qualify for the knock out stage for the second successive year and they did not even win a single tie with any country in the group stage. Their main players K Srikanth and Prannoy, Kashyap was not available for this tournament. They lost to Thailand and Hong Kong by 3-2 margins. Against Indonesia, the Indian team was outclassed 0-5. Pranneth and Sourabh did a decent job to win 2 matches but it was not enough. Singles player Jayaram and the doubles pair lost all their matches in the group stage which led India to such a pathetic situation.
In the men’s section also the doubles pair was a big problem. Summeth and Manu who have qualified for Rio Olympics did not perform according to expectations while the second doubles pair of Diwakar and Reddy also failed to live up to the expectation.
The Indian men’s team need to improve their style of play in order to compete with top nations like Indonesia, Hong Kong and Thailand both in singles and doubles. The journey appears to long and arduous.