India lose in semis of Asia Youth U-19 badminton

Lucknow: India`s campaign ended in the Asia Youth Under-19 badminton championships after the home team succumbed to a 0-3 defeat against formidable China in the semifinals of the mixed team event at Gomti Nagar.

The Indian shuttlers had their chances but the youngsters failed to sustain the pressure on their rivals and blew the opportunity in the end. In the morning session, India assured itself a place in the semifinals with a 3-0 victory over Chinese Taipei to set up a clash with the mighty Chinese but none of the home shuttlers could get across their rivals at the UP Badminton Academy this evening. In the first match of the semifinal encounter, K Srikanth and K Maneesha had open up a 6-2 lead in the opening game but Tianyi Pei and Dongni Ou soon caught up and walked away with giant strides, notching up a 21-13, 21-11 victory.Pratul Joshi was then handed the responsibility of taming the Chinese men`s singles player Kai Guo and the Madhya Pradesh lad was quick to grab the first game. But Kai bounced back strongly to level the match after pocketing the hard-fought second game.The decider too was a close affair but it was the Chinese who had the last laugh as India conceded a 0-2 lead. All hopes rested on Venkatesh B and Shivam Sharma but the Indian men`s doubles pair could not thwart the challenge of Chinese duo of Zhuofu Chen and Tianyi Pei and lost 14-21, 16-21 to crash out of the event. PTI