PETALING JAYA: The absence of China’s Shi Yuqi could be music to India’s ears when they face them in the final Group A tie today, but the Chinese team’s strength in numbers still brings a loud presence in Horsens.
World No. 1 Yuqi had withdrawn from the Canada game against Victor Lai on Monday, citing illness, as the Canadian received a walkover.
Preliminary information from Chinese media reported that Yuqi suffered a case of acute gastroenteritis, which led to his withdrawal, and it could take several days for him to recover and be back at full playing capacity.
Should Yuqi miss today’s tie, it would leave China’s second men’s singles shuttler Li Shifeng to take on the first match against Lakshya Sen.
Lakshya, currently ranked No. 7 in the world, has enjoyed recent success against Chinese opponents, having defeated both Yuqi and Shifeng at the All-England in March.
However, Shifeng believes China’s strong team will be able to hold their own without Yuqi, as they did against Canada.
“Although Yuqi wasn’t playing, I wasn’t nervous because the team have a lot of strong players,” said Shifeng.
The line-up for today’s matchup could see Shifeng face Lakshya; Weng Hongyang versus Ayush Shetty; and Lu Guangzu against K. Srikanth.
In the doubles, the potential match-up would see Liang Weikeng-Wang Chang face Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty and He Jiting-Ren Xiangyu take on Hariharan Amsakarunan-M.R. Arjun.
