India creates history, wins maiden Thomas Cup

On Sunday, the Indian Men’s Badminton team scripted history by winning its maiden Thomas Cup trophy, by comprehensively defeating the defending champions Indonesia 3-0 in the finals. The Indian team had played superbly against Denmark in the semi-final stage to enter their first-ever Thomas Cup finals. Motivated by their great show against the strong Denmark team, the Indian shuttlers outplayed their Indonesian counterparts in three straight games.

In the first match of the final, Lakshya Sen defeated Anthony Ginting in the singles draw. This was followed by an impressive performance by Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy in the doubles match against Kevin Sukamuljo and Mohammad Ahsan. With 2-0 up, the stage was set for the former World no. 1 Kidambi Srikanth to seal the fate in India’s favor, and he did not disappoint, as he went on to defeat Jonatan Christie in the second singles match.

As a result, HS Prannoy’s heroics from the quarter-final and semi-final stages was not required. In both the ties, India were 2-2 against the opposition team, and it was Prannoy, who played fantastically to win both the games and led the team to its first-ever Thomas Cup finals.