India stroll to team titles, zoom in on TUC qualifiers

While winning the gold medals were expected of the strong Indian team, the wins, nevertheless, will give the team the impetus and motivation to succeed in the SCG Thomas Cup and Uber Cup preliminaries in Bangkok, Thailand on 21-18 February.

Badminton Association of India (BAI) joint secretary Punnaiah Choudary described the win as a “morale booster” ahead of the tough challenge in Bangkok.

“The win is definitely a morale booster ahead of our campaign to qualify for the Thomas Cup and Uber Cup finals,” said Punnaiah.

“The Asian qualifiers are tough as there are many strong teams in Bangkok but the players are ready for the challenge and we are going to Bangkok on a positive note.”

At the South Asian Games, India claimed the men’s and women’s team gold medals when they beat Sri Lanka 3-0 in both categories on Monday.

Bangladesh bagged the bronze in the men’s section while Nepal took third place in the women’s section.

Despite the absence of several leading players like Saina Nehwal, Jwala Gupta in the women’s team and Arvind Bhat and Anup Sridhar in the men’s team, India packed too much firepower to douse the challenge from Sri Lanka.

In the Asian qualifiers for the Thomas Cup and Uber Cup, India will have to compete with the likes of former champions Indonesia, 2008 runners-up Korea, Chinese Taipei, Japan and hosts Thailand for the four places in the Thomas Cup.

The other teams in the fray are Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Hong Kong. Malaysia, as hosts of the Finals in May, and defending champions China, utomatically qualify for the Finals.

In the Uber Cup, India will have to contend with teams like Japan, Indonesia, Korea, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong and hosts Thailand for the three automatic slots. The fourth spot will go to the team with the best world ranking amongst the fourth placed nations in Asia and Europe.

“Several of our top players did not feature in the team event but for the Thomas Cup and Uber Cup campaign, they will be definitely playing and we hope to make an impact,” added Punnaiah.

“It will be tough but we are prepared to fight all the way (to qualify).”

The squad:

Men: Chetan Anand, Arvind Bhatt, P. Kashyap, Anup Sridhar, R.M.V Gurusaidutt, V. Diju, Rupesh Kumar, Thomas Sanave, Akshay Dewalkar and Jishnu Sanyal.

Women: Saina Nehwal, Sayali Ghokale, Trupti Murgunde, Sikki Reddy, P.C. Tulasi, Gayatri Vartak, Jwala Gutta, Ashwini Ponnappa, Shruti Kurian and Aparna Balan.