CHENNAI: AYUSH Shetty kept up his winning streak in the ongoing Thomas Cup on Wednesday. Moving away from his usual attacking instincts, the 20-year-old made mid-game adjustments, produced some finely-crafted deceptive winners in his match against Weng Hong Yang of China at Horsens, Denmark. In the end, he was simply undeniable as he walked away with a W.
The scoreline read 17-21, 21-13, 21-15 in Ayush's favour.
It was another notable outcome for the youngster, who had made the world take notice of home during the recent Asian Championships, where he had ended with silver.
More importantly, his win had kept India in the hunt against a formidable Chinese team, the reigning champs. But at the end of the day, it proved to be in vain as India suffered a 2-3 defeat on the day. It has to be noted that China's No 1 singles specialist Shi Yu Qi, who is down with illness, was not part of the contest.
The damage had been done before Ayush had entered Court 1.
Lakshya Sen, who took part in the first men's singles, had suffered a major collapse against Li Shi Feng in the third game to hand China the upper hand. It was a somewhat similar story for doubles combination of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, who were the next Indians to enter the court. Just like Lakshya, they had fought back after losing the opening game against Paris Games silver medallists Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang. In the decider, they had a three-point advantage towards the business end but they could not quite hold on to that lead and ended up on the losing side. It was a massive blow for the Indian camp.
That's when Ayush entered the picture to keep India interested.
The onus was now on second doubles duo of Hariharan Amsakarunan and MR Arjun to produce a similar act. But they were simply helpless as they were outmatched by He Ji Ting and Ren Xiang Yu.
"This is my first Thomas Cup and I'm enjoying this. I'm happy with the way I'm playing. The goal was to win but unfortunately we lost two close games but I'm happy to get the point for the team," Ayush told reporters.
With the contest already in China's bag, HS Prannoy, the last Indian to take the court, was playing for pride. Prannoy lost a close opening game against Lu Guang Zu before making a spectacular comeback.
Prannoy won 20-22, 21-19, 21-11 to help the team finish on a high.
With this win, China topped Group A while India finished second.
