India Faces Setback in Thomas Cup

In the final group-stage match of the Thomas Cup Finals, the India national badminton team suffered a narrow 2–3 defeat against the China national badminton team. Both teams had already secured qualification for the quarterfinals from Group A. With this win, China finished at the top of the group, while India settled for second place. In the opening singles, Lakshya Sen lost to Li Shifeng 19–21, 21–8, 12–21. This was followed by a doubles defeat, where Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty went down 13–21, 21–13, 24–26 to Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang, leaving India trailing 0–2.

In the second singles, Ayush Shetty bounced back with a 17–21, 21–13, 21–15 victory over Weng Hongyang, reducing the deficit to 2–1. However, in the second doubles, Arjun M. R. and Hariharan were defeated 17–21, 13–21 by He Jiting and Ren Xiangyu, sealing the tie for China at 3–1. In the final, inconsequential third singles, H. S. Prannoy registered a 20–22, 21–19, 21–11 win over Guang, but it did not impact the overall result.