Rupesh-Sanave pair crashes out of World Badminton C`ship

Indian men`s doubles pair of Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas hit a low after their recent success at the Asian circuit as the duo suffered a straight-game defeat in the first round to crash out of the World Badminton C`ship.

Hyderabad: Indian men`s doubles pair of Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas hit a low after their recent

success at the Asian circuit as the duo suffered a straight-game defeat in the first round to crash out of the World Badminton Championship here today. Rupesh-Sanave played their hearts out but they neither had the luck nor the pluck as they succumbed to a 13-21 21-23 defeat to the 14th seed Japanese pair of Kenichi Hayakawa and Kenta Kazuno in just over half an hour match. "We didn`t have luck. Some unforced errors, silly mistakes put paid our chances," Rupesh said after the match. "We didn`t get the right feeling straight from the start and were finding it difficult to get used to the court. There was too much drift because of the air-conditioners," he added. After seeing the first game slipping out of their hand, the world number 18 Indian pair pulled up their shocks and were leading 20-16 before eventually losing. "We were good in second game and was leading 20-16 but I don`t know what happened, whether it was luck or lapse of concentration we just couldn`t do it today," Rupesh said. The Indian combination had won the New Zealand Open Grand Prix last month and were runners-up at the Australian Open. "We were high on confidence after recent successes and we had almost pulled off the match. I was finding it difficult to judge the momentum of shuttle. It was almost unplayable.” Bureau Report