Nanning: Sameer Verma suffered a shocking straight-game loss in men’s singles on Tuesday as India were stunned 2-3 by a young Malaysia in a group 1D match to jeopardise their hopes of reaching the knockout stage of the Sudirman Cup mixed team championship here.
Mixed doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa produced a brilliant performance to outdo Malaysia’s Goh Soon Huat and Lai Shevon Jemie 16-21 21-17 24-22 in an hour and 10-minute opening match to give India a 1-0 lead.
But India’s decision to field world no 13 Sameer instead of Kidambi Srikanth in men’s singles backfired as the former couldn’t get going against Lee Zii Jia, losing 13-21 15-21 in 48 minutes to allow Malaysia level the scores 1-1.
Olympic and world championship silver medallist P V Sindhu then steamrolled Goh Jin Wei 21-12 21-8 in 35 minutes to bring India back on track but doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy lost narrowly 20-22 19-21 to Aaron Chia / Teo Ee Yi.
