Five reasons why India disappointed at Sudirman Cup 2023

The Indian side made a third-consecutive group stage exit at the World Cup of mixed teams.

Indian badminton team bowed out of the Sudirman Cup 2023 after back-to-back losses against Chinese Taipei and Malaysia. In the Group C opener, India lost 1-4 against Chinese Taipei, with the women's doubles pairing of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand winning the only match of the tie for the Indian team. Malaysia whitewashed India 5-0 in the second tie.

India did salvage some pride, winning 4-1 against the bottom-placed team of Group C, Australia. A lot has been made and said about the supposedly catastrophic results in the group stage of the Sudirman Cup by India. Fans and players expected a lot more from themselves, especially after the Thomas Cup win. In this article, we try and look at what could have possibly gone wrong for India and even try to look at some numbers to put the Sudirman Cup exit into perspective.

Group of Death

Group C was the group of death - the only of the four groups to feature three teams in the top 10 of the BWF world rankings. Malaysia were the highest-ranked team in the group and the fifth-best in the world. India are not far behind them, standing at World No. 7. Finally, Chinese Taipei comes next at the ninth position on the world rankings.

Even if one were to look past the world rankings, the head-to-head records had the Taiwanese and Malaysian shuttlers favourites against India coming into the Sudirman Cup 2023.

• Lee Zii Jia led 2-1 against Kidambi Srikanth
• Lee Zii Jia had a 1-1 record against HS Prannoy
• Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik were undefeated against Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty 7-0
• Pearly Tan-Thinaah Muralitharan led 4-1 against Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand
• Tai Tzu Ying led 17-5 against PV Sindhu
• Chou Tien Chen led 5-3 against HS Prannoy
• Chou Tien Chen lost only once in six matches against Kidambi Srikanth

So, to come back with losses against Chinese Taipei and Malaysia is perhaps not as catastrophic as is being made.

Loss of form in singles

One thing that worked in favour of India against every team they played in their historic Thomas Cup run was the depth and form of the singles players. Having Kidambi Srikanth, Lakshya Sen and HS Prannoy, all in the top 15 of world rankings and great form, provided India with the depth no team could compete with. Thus, Indian finished the tournament with a superior record in the men's singles category against every team they faced, including the Malaysians.

Even PV Sindhu has not won anything since her Commonwealth Games 2022 triumph in Birmingham. The best she has managed since then is reaching the finals of a BWF 300 event, Madrid Open. Injuries and poor form have seen her slip out of the top 10 in BWF women's singles rankings for the first time since November 2017.

Sub-par performance from Satwik-Chirag

Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy were the only in-form players in the Indian squad for the Sudirman Cup 2023, alongside Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand. And so, the onus was on the two doubles pairings to win points for the Indians in the ties and put pressure on the opponents' singles players.

However, unfortunately, that couldn't be the case for the World No. 7 pair in the Sudirman Cup 2023. Satwik-Chirag lost their doubles tie against Chinese Taipei's Lee Yang-Ye Hong Wei, a big upset for the Indian team. Against the Malaysians, Satwik-Chirag played against the pair who have been kryptonite to them, the World No. 2 pair of Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik.

Order of play against the Indian team

India's best bet to win points in the ties of the Sudirman Cup 2023 was the men's doubles and women's doubles categories, as aforesaid. However, apart from the poor form, the order of the games also didn't help India's case. In fact, it made matters worse.

Whenever the duo of Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty went on the court, the balance of the tie was already heavily favouring the opponents, adding to the pressure for them. And the young duo of Treesa-Gayatri and Satwik-Chirag couldn't handle the pressure while playing against quality opponents, thus ending up losing their games as well.

Weaker mixed doubles pairing

Mixed doubles pairing has been India's weakest link in mixed team events. In the Badminton Asia Championships 2023, India lost points in both the knockout ties in the mixed doubles category while fielding the best possible pairing it could, Ishaan Bhatnagar-Tanisha Castro.

However, the two haven't played since then, and it thus weakened an already weak mixed-doubles category for the Indian badminton team in the Sudirman Cup 2023. As expected, India failed to get much out of the category.