Hyderabad: Despite losing in the first men’s singles match, Indonesia did just enough to halt India men’s winning run at Badminton Asia Team Championships (BATC) after a 3-1 semi-final victory on Saturday.
Indonesia played Tommy Sugiarto in the first men’s singles match against India’s Kidambi Srikanth. Sugiarto lost the first set 14-21, but put up some stiff resistance at the end of second set to prevail 25-23. However, Srikanth’s aggression was proving too much for Sugiarto in the rubber, with Sugiarto went down 9-21 in the decider.
In the first men’s doubles match that followed, World No. 2 men’s pair Mohammad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan was playing on a different level to ease past Manu Attri-Sumeeth Reddy 21-11, 21-10 to level the overall score at 1-1.
Ginting Anthony then stepped up to the plate when his team needed it most and delivered in style by taming World No. 25 Ajay Jayaram 21-15, 22-20 to put Indonesia ahead with 2-1.
The combined challenge of whistles, and shouts could not derail Indonesians Angga Pratama-Ricky Karanda Suwardi from their tasks when they won the third and decisive point of the semi-finals tie after their hard-fought 21-13, 18-21, 21-15 victory against Pranaav Jerry Chopra-Akshay Dewalkar in the second’s men’s doubles match.
Indonesia will play Japan in the final on Sunday. In the other men’s team semi-finals, Japan saw off Korea 3-0 to reach the finals.
Meanwhile, Japan beat Thailand 3-0 and Korea was knocked out by China 0-3 in women’s team semi-final encounters.