India cruise past Aussies, Denmark punish Algeria

Bangkok, May 21: India’s women’s badminton team, led by Saina Nehwal, notched up a dominant 4- 1 win over lowly Australia in their second Group A match of the Uber Cup final, while the men blanked their Australia counterparts 5- 0 in the Thomas Cup here on Monday.

After going down 1- 4 to Canada in the opening match, Saina and Co. got their act together as they won four matches, losing just the women’s doubles.

Saina saw off Hsuan- Yu Wendy Chen 21- 14, 21- 19 to hand India a 1- 0 lead.

However, Meghana Jakkampudi and Poorvisha S. Ram lost 13- 21, 16- 21 to Gronya Somerville and Renuga Veeran to concede the advantage.

Vaishnavi Reddy Jakka, 16, then dumped Jennifer Tam 21- 17, 21- 13 to give India the lead again.

Sanyogita Ghorpade and Prajakta Sawant defeated Louisa Ma and Ann- Louise Slee 21- 19, 21- 11 in the second women's doubles match to help India go up 31. Anura Prabhudesai, the 19- year- old from Goa, then brushed aside Zecily Fung 21- 6, 21- 7 to seal the contest.

The men's team, spearheaded by world no. 9 H. S. Prannoy, also brought some cheers back to the camp.

Prannoy started the proceedings defeating Anthony Joe 21- 19, 21- 13.

The doubles pair of Arjun M. R. and Ramchandran Shlok streamrolled Matthew Chau and Sawan Serasinghe 21- 11, 21- 15 before B. Sai Praneeth thrashed Jacob Schueler 21- 9, 21- 6.

World number one Viktor Axelsen led Denmark’s 5- 0 demolition of Algeria, as Japan’s women also breezed past Canada without dropping a set.

Elsewhere in Group D, Malaysia steamrolled Russia 5- 0 with Lee Chong Wei setting the tone in the first game during a 21- 9, 216 win against Vladimir Malkov. — Agencies