India came up with a valiant performance but it could not prove enough as they went down fighting to second seeded Indonesia 1-3 to finish sixth in the BWF World Junior Mixed Team Championships 2017 at Yogjakarta Indonesia.
Indian team which who had earlier lost to Malaysia in the quarterfinals took on Indonesia in the 5th-6th place play-off tie. India who had been in a ravishing form in the group stages where they remained unbeaten could not however maintain their winning streak as they first went down to the eventual finalists Malaysia in the quarterfinals and then lost against Indonesia.
India could not get off to a desired start as their mixed doubles pair of Dhruv Kapila/Rutuparna Panda lost to the pair of Siti Fadia Silva Ramadhanti/Rinov Rivaldy 21-11, 21-6 in 28 minutes. Karthikey Gulshan Kumar replaced World No.2 Laqshya Sen, who had to be rested for an ankle strain took the fight to Ikshan Leonardo Rumbay before going down to 16-21, 20-22 in 46 minutes in the men’s singles encounter.
The men’s doubles pair of Krishna Prasad Garaga/ Dhruv Kapila beat Muhammad Sohibul Fikri/Adnan Maulana 24-22, 23-21 in 38 minutes to pull one back and bring India’s campaign back on track. However, it did not count much as Aakarshi Kashyap lost narrowly to Gregoria Tunjung 22-24, 21-23 to bring an end to India’s pursuit of a fifth place finish.
Talking about the performance of Indian contingent, Mr.Anup Narang, secretary of BAI and official spokesperson said, “It would have been great to finisih the campaign with a podium finish but the players gave it their all. At times results do not reflect the performance and this tournament is one such instance. BAI will be doing everything in their ability to develop the junior circuit and ensure performances of players are on the right track. We are sure our current process of identifying junior players and providing them good coaching facilities will definitely take Indian badminton to soaring heights.”
Even though India missed out on the medal, they gave a good account for themselves to finish two places higher than 2015, where they finished eighth. India’s best finish in the competition came in 2008, where they finished fourth and their second best is sixth place finish which they had earlier achieved in 2011 as well.