Rio Olympics 2016: Manu Attri-B Sumeeth Reddy's loss ends India's badminton doubles campaign

Rio de Janeiro: The men’s doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy suffered a straight game loss to China’s Chai Biao and Hong Wei in the second match of Group D to draw curtains on India’s badminton doubles campaign at the Rio Olympics 2016 on Friday. Playing in their first Olympics, the World No 21 lost 13-21 15-21 to Biao and Wei, ranked fifth in the world in a 35-minute battle. Manu and Sumeeth, who had lost to Indonesian pair of Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan on Friday in their opening Group D match, will next take on Japan’s Hiroyuki Endo and Kenichi Hayakawa, ranked eighth in the world. [caption id=“attachment_2953156” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy (front) in action during their doubles fixture on Day 7 of the Rio Olympics. AP[/caption] The Japanese combo has already sealed its place in the knockout stage after winning both their matches. The winner of the match between Indonesian and Chinese pair on Saturday will qualify for the knockout. Earlier, the experienced pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa were eliminated from women’s doubles event after losing their second successive group A clash. In a rollercoaster game against the Dutch team of Eefje Muskens and Selena Piek, Jwala and Ashwini went down 16-21 21-16 17-21 in a 48-minute clash. Lying second from bottom in the group standings, Jwala and Ashwini will have just pride to play for when they take on Puttita Supajirakul and Sapsiree Taerattanachai of Indonesia in their final group clash. The Indonesians are also winless and are lying bottom of the heap. In men’s doubles, the Indian pair fought hard from the start but failed to tame the Chinese who managed to hold a eight-point game advantage and pocketed the opening game after Manu hit long. In the second game, Manu and Sumeeth started on a positive note and marched ahead to a 3-0 lead but Biao and Wei came back to enter the break with a slender 11-9 lead. After the interval, the Chinese continued to move ahead and opened up a 17-12 lead at one stage. Manu and Sumeeth tried to bridge the gap but they soon reached match point at 20-15 and sealed the issue when Sumeeth hit the net. Jwala and Ashwini, who were distinctly uncoordinated in their opening loss to Japan, gave a better account of themselves in Friday’s match, but failed to go for the kill. The opening game was lost in merely 19 minutes but far from being bogged down, Jwala and Ashwini fought back to grab the second with the former being particularly impressive with her strokeplay close to the net. However, the momentum gained in that game could not take them past the finishing line as Muskens and Piek bounced back to clinch the match. Ashwini proved to be the weak link in the decider and Muskens and Piek did not miss any opportunity to attack her on the back court. Jwala said: “We did our best. A little disappointed. Whenever we play badminton, whenever we are on court, we try and give our best. Try and win the last match.” Ashwini said: “We gave it our all. Probably we could have reduced our mistakes a little bit. We rotated well, hit hard, defended well. Just not our day. “Irrespective of what happened today, tomorrow we will give our 100 percent to win the match,” she added. World No 11 Kidambi Srikanth overcame some stiff resistance in the second game from lower ranked Mexican rival Lino Munoz before winning his group H clash in straight games in men’s badminton singles at the Olympic Games late on Thursday night. Srikanth, the only Indian male shuttler in fray in singles, got past world No 85 Munoz 21-11 21-17 in 41 minutes to give a perfect ending to the sixth day of competitions. If Srikanth, who had defeated badminton superstar Lin Dan to win the Chinese Open two years ago, had expected an easier outing than he encountered, it was belied by the Mexican’s will to fight with good backing from the crowd, especially in the second game. After taking the opening game comfortably, the cushion of a 16-9 lead proving handy, Srikanth was given a tough fight in the second as he had to rally from behind on quite a few occasions before using his better court craft and experience to see him through. Srikanth led 6-2 but the Mexican drew level and then led 8-6 before the Indian fought back to restore parity. Srikanth was 11-9 ahead at the break but a series of poor returns of serve saw the Indian down 11-12. Things were neck to neck from this point till 13-all before Munoz again went up to 16-13 with the help of some weak mid-court clears by the Indian that were “killed” without much ado by the Mexican. Srikanth again caught up at 16, fell behind 16-17 through another weak mid-court clear, but finally brought his game back on track to level the scores at 17 with a superb smash to the forehand side of his rival. From then on the superiority of the Indian shuttler came to the fore as he came up with successive cross court and down the line smashes to lead 19-17 which were followed by a netted shot by his rival to give Srikanth four match points. The last point was won by the Indian with a bodyline smash followed by a push to the back court that caught the Mexican in no-man’s land.