HS Prannoy battled his way to the semi-finals, becoming only the first Indian in 41 years to win a badminton medal in men’s singles at the Asian Games, but it was curtains for PV Sindhu in women’s singles here on Thursday.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty then progressed to the last four, becoming the second Indian men’s doubles pair to secure a medal after Leroy D’sa and Pradeep Gandhe won a bronze in 1982.
Playing with a taping on his lower back and a belt under his shirt, Prannoy battled severe back spasm to dish out a performance for the ages, outshining Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia 21-16, 21-23, 22-20 in the quarter finals to assure India a second badminton medal at the ongoing Games. India had won a silver in men’s team championships last Sunday.
“I think it was a really tough one out there. I think Lee is always a tough opponent. It was a very physical match today for me,” Prannoy said after the match.
“I’m not at all in a condition where I could say I’m 80 per cent right. But I think to pull off something like this, I would give a lot of credit to myself. I think the will to fight was always there.”
Prannoy will face China’s Li Shi Feng for a spot in the final.
Satwik and Chirag then claimed a men’s doubles medal after 41 years with a 21-7, 21-9 win over Singapore’s Nge Joo Jie and Johann Prajogo in the quarter finals to set up a clash with Malaysia’s Aaron Chia and Sooh Wooi Yik on Friday.
However, Sindhu had to endure the pain of returning without a medal for the first time in nine years after she lost 16-21, 12-21 to world No.5 Chinese He Bingjiao.
Hockey: Savita laments defeat
Favourites India endured a forgettable 0-4 drubbing at the hands of China in the women’s hockey semifinals, a result that not only pushed the team out of the gold medal race but also denied it a direct entry to the Paris Olympics.
Last edition’s silver medallist India, the highest-ranked team in the tournament at world No. 7, was no match to China, who were the bronze medallists in 2018 in Jakarta.
Jiaqi Zhong (25th minute), Meirong Zou (40th), Meiyu Liang (55th) and Bingfeng Gu (60th) scored the goals for China.
“Definitely not the result we were looking for. I’m quite disappointed with the performance of my team,” skipper Savita Punia said.
“We knew that China is a good team, but our team is quite good too. Maybe it wasn’t our day, as we were not able to execute the plans we had made for this game. We gave it away.
“We didn’t think this would happen. I can only say I’m sad, because we had a different goal in mind. We were well-prepared for it too — it’s not as though there was something missing from our training.”
The coordination between the midfield and forwardline was completely missing as India failed to create any clear cut scoring chance.