Asian Games 2018 Badminton: Kidambi Srikanth Loses to China’s Unseeded Hong Kong Shuttler Vincent Wong

The year 2018 has been quite a disappointing one for the Indian badminton players. The year so far has witnessed only a handful of good performances. And to add on, here comes another major disappointment at the Asian Games 2018, Jakarta. India’s badminton ace Kidambi Srikanth lost to Hong Kong shuttler Vincent Wong. Kidambi lost in the round of 32 i.e the second round by 21-23, 19-21. It took about 40 minutes for Vincent Wong to defeat the Indian ace.

The game was no less than a pendulum as the result swung either way. At one point in time, both Srikanth and Wong refused to give up and were going neck-to-neck. In fact, in the mid-interval of the first game, Srikanth was leading the set and was ahead by 11-9. The Indian shuttler went on to play with the same intensity even in the latter half as he extended the lead. However, Wong put up a good fight and got the scored levelled on 20-20. Srikanth was unable to capitalize on the game points and Vincent took away the first game by 21-23.

In the second game, things didn’t go Srikanth’s way and the shuttler was trailing by 7-11. Deft shots were being played by the player from Hong Kong which obviously put the Srikanth under pressure. Srikanth did even the scores at one point but Wong proved to be way too good for the seeded shuttler. Finally, he lost the game by 19-21.

Talking about Srikanth, his ankle injury in November last year has clearly put breaks on the performances of the 25-year old. The shuttler, however, had proved his mettle during the Commonwealth Games 2018.   (Check out the live blog of the Asian Games here)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 24, 2018 04:17 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).