PETALING JAYA: World No. 4 singles shuttler Lakshya Sen’s (pic) defeat in India’s first group tie in the Thomas Cup Finals indicates the unpredictability of their chances in this year’s edition in Horsens.
Yesterday, Lakshya battled for 61 minutes before going down to Victor Lai of Canada in the opening match.
India eventually won the tie 4-1 after scoring points through Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty, Ayush Shetty, Hariharan Amsakarunan-M.R. Arjun and their old warhorse S. Srikanth.
All eyes will continue to be on Asian Championships runner-up Ayush, who is a dangerous player at the second singles.
India are in the same group with Australia and China.
The biggest test for Lakshya will be against world No. 1 Shi Yuqi when they clash in the coming days.
Yuqi proved his status as the world No. 1 when he took only 31 minutes to outplay Australia’s Ephraim Stephen Sam 21-14, 21-10 in the first match.
China also won points through their two regular singles players Li Shifeng and Lu Guangzu while their strong pairs Liang Weikeng-Wang Chang and Chen Boyang-Liu Yi also delivered.
China signalled their intent by wrapping up their tie in less than three hours.
Guangzu, however, is keeping his feet firmly on the ground.
“The campaign might get increasingly difficult as we go. We can’t let our guard down just because of a 5-0 win in the first tie,” he said.
