Thomas and Uber Cup: Indian shuttlers start with 5-0 win over Germany; women beat Canada

Indian teams were off to winning starts in the Thomas and Uber Cup in Bangkok on Sunday. While the men trounced Germany 5-0 in their Group C match, women defeated Canada 4-1 in the Uber Cup Group D encounter. PV Sindhu started with a 21-17, 21-10 drubbing of Michelle Li 21-17, 21-10. But Canada was back in contention after Rachel Honderich and Kristen Tsai downed Shruti Mishra and Simran Singhi 21-19, 21-12. Aakarshi Kashyap, who played the second singles for India, lost the first game and was down 7-12 in the second against Wen Yu Zhang. However, she won the second game and the match 17-21, 21-18, 21-17. The duo of Tanisha Crasto and Treesa Jolly took just 29 minutes to oust Catherine Choi and Josephine Wu 21-9, 21-15. Ashmitha Chaliha made it 4-1 for India with a 12-21 21-11, 22-20 victory against Rachel Chan. Earlier, Lakshya Sen got India off to a fluent start with a 21-16, 21-13 victory over Max Weisskirchen. Though they stuttered in the second game, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty were impressive in their 21-15, 10-21, 21-13 win over Jones Ralfy Jansen and Marvin Siedel. In the second singles, Kidambi Srikanth beat Kai Schaffer 18-21, 21-9, 21-11 to secure unassailable 3-0 lead for India. MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila faced stiff resistance in the first game before dominating Bjarne Geiss/Jan Colin Voelker 25-23, 21-15. HS Prannoy ensured a clean sweep with a dominant 219, 21-9 victory against Matthias Kicklitz.