Super Sundays are generally spoken of in the footballing context, but
a super Sunday for badminton came in the form of India winning its first ever
Thomas Cup. For the non-badminton aficionado, the Thomas Cup is badmintons equivalent of Tennis’s Davis Cup
or if you feel a bit more adventurous – like the FIFA World Cup. It’s simply
put the World Men's Team Championship, one of the most “prestigious” tournaments
on the BWF circuit. The women's championship is the Uber Cup (not to be confused
with the ubiquitous ride hailing app) which plays out in parallel. The Thomas Cup
happens every 2 years since 1982, previously being a once in 3 year affair. The
present one not-withstanding, 32 versions
of this tournament have been held so far with only 5 nations having won the title.
Leading the pack is Indonesia with 14 wins, followed by China at 10, then Malaysia
with 5 of them , Denmark & Japan have won 1 each.
Thanks goodness for BWF live streaming this tournament on YouTube
and I was able to follow India’s progress in the Semis and Finals. India’s previous
best showing was a semi final spot, so reaching the finals itself was a
monumental achievement. In fact India did not top their group stages, losing to
Chinese Taipei to finish second.
THE SEMIS:
When they met the fancied Danes in the semi finals, you wouldn’t
have bet hard earned money on them going through. After the mercurial Lakshya
Sen lost rather tamely in the opener to the best player in the world currently,
Victor Axelsen, you would have felt even better about not being a betting
person. India’s doubles pairing of Rankireddy & Chirag Shetty are a young
team that has been slowly but surely stamping their class on the top of the mens
doubles game. They put up a monumental fight against a strong Danish pairing
and despite missing multiple match points, they managed to pull off the win 22-20
in the decider. Kidambi Srikanth who is going through a mid career resurgence
in the last few months, was up against Anders Antonsen who himself has rapidly
climbed the mens rankings to world #3. Kidambi played a masterclass against a
much more fancied opponent.
The 2nd men’s doubles was a breeze for the Danish pair as they overpowered the #45 ranked, relatively inexperienced Indian pairing. It finally came down to the talented but inconsistent HS Prannoy who was playing Rasmus Gemke – another talented Danish singles player ranked #13 in the world, ten places above him. After losing the 1st game rather easily and suffering an injury scare in the 2nd, only a blind patriot would have been following the game hoping for a win. But “HSP”, as was the chants ringing out in the Bangkok stadium, rose to the occasion and pulled out an amazing win sending India to the finals. The team swamped him and you could see what it meant to them to reach the finals for the first time. They started to believe they could write history.
THE FINALS
But standing in their way was the most successful Thomas cup
champions of all time, they had the #1 & #2 doubles pairing in the world,
they had Anthony Ginting and Jonathon Christie who were ranked #5 & #8
respectively. On paper Indonesia should have cruised to its 15th
title. But Lakshya Sen had other ideas. The 20 year old (hopefully future world
#1) played a spirited match against Ginting who looked superior for most patches.
But Sen kept hanging in there with dogged defence and forced Ginting to play
that extra shot. He then upped the attack in the 3rd game, playing
some sublime points which left Ginting’s game in disarray. Sen closed out the
deciding game with a spinning net shot.
India had the perfect start.
The Indian power boys were up next, playing a scratch Indonesian
pair (they split their regular doubles pairing) and it was again a topsy turvy
match with match points being saved by the Indians in the 2nd game,
but they held their nerves in the decider to win 21-19. India were on the brink.
Surely they couldn’t do it 3-0. Kidambi rolled in next and played
a measured opening game against the higher ranked Christie. You could see the
nerves showing for both players in the back end of the 2nd game.
Srikanth blew a comfortable mid game lead and lost 8 out of 9 points to hand
the initiative back to Christie. But Christie himself did not capitalize much
as he made errors on crucial points which could only be attributed to nerves. He
had game points to take it to the decider, but Srikanth kept the pressure , his
net play on match point down was not for the faint hearted, but it got the desired
result and it was all-square. In top flight badminton, like elite tennis, the
difference between winning and losing is so thin – its hinges on a couple of
critical points and who is able to keep their nerve. On this occasion, Srikanth
was able to close out the match with a leaping overhead smash to send his team
mates scurrying to the court to carry him and send his country into raptures.
A badminton Super Sunday indeed.
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