Brimming with confidence, India will again look to punch above their weight when they run into 14-time winners Indonesia in the final of Thomas Cup in Bangkok on Sunday, seeking to create history one more time.
World No 26 Satwik and Ashwini showed their grit as they recovered from a mid-game slump to outwit the sixth seeded Indonesian pair
Prannoy and Sen played five times in 2022 with Sen coming into the match with a slender 3-2 advantage.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa notched up an upset win over the World No 8 and second-seeded Indonesian pair of Hafiz Faizal and Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja in the opening round.
India ace Kidambi Srikanth was rewarded for his sensational run this season as he grabbed a career-best ranking of World No. 2 after jumping two places in the latest BWF ranking released on Thursday.
Saina squandered a game advantage to lose 21-16, 11-21, 14-21 against Takahashi
Verma who had shocked Malaysia's eighth seed Lee Zii Jia in the opening round, needed just 39 minutes to see off Gemke
India has entered the final of the Thomas Cup for the first time since the tournament began 73 years back.
Experienced drag-flicker Rupinder Pal Singh returned to India's men's hockey team, which also features debutant Jaskaran Singh, for the tour of Australia, starting May 10.
His backhand blocks and forehand low returns reaped dividends but an alert Gemke managed to grab a four-point cushion at the interval.
PV Sindhu outclassed Germany's Yvonne Li to cruise into the women's singles quarter-finals of the Indonesia Open Super 1000 event in Bali on Thursday.
Young men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty too entered the quarter-finals after getting past Chinese Taipei's Liao Min Chun and Su Ching Heng 21-17, 21-16 in the second round.
Top shuttler B Sai Praneeth and doubles player Dhruv Rawat have already pulled out after testing positive in the pre-departure testing.
Saina, who has been battling illness and injuries, is going through a bad patch, having lost six times in the first round this season.
Indian contingent has an opportunity to go deep in the draw and recapture the trophy which has been won by just two Indians so far -- the legendary Prakash Padukone (1980) and P Gopichand (2001).
National camp to resume on Monday.
Former World No 1 Saina, the London Olympics bronze medallist, lost 14-21, 21-17, 17-21 to World No 2 Yamaguchi in a 50-minute women's singles clash.
Srikanth held a 4-1 record over Prannoy coming into this match, but the shuttler was unable to deliver. Srikanth won the first game 21-13, but Prannoy won the second set comprehensively.
Lakshya Sen's stunning win over Asian Games champion Jonatan Christie went in vain as the Indian men's badminton team went down fighting 2-3 to two-time defending champions Indonesia in the semi-finals to settle for a bronze at the Asia Team Championships in Manila on Saturday.
Sindhu, seeded fifth, slugged it out for one hour and two minutes to get the better of Blichfeldt
Indian mixed doubles pairing of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa shocked Commonwealth Games silver medallists England's Marcus Ellis and Lauren Smith to enter the pre-quarterfinals of the $ 1 million China Open
Sourabh Verma and Ajay Jayram also entered the second round
Sen won his second round contest 21-17, 21-10, taking 72 minutes to complete the formality.
The Badminton World Federastion (BWF) unveiled a revised international calendar to salvage the remainder of the season, disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jwala says Sindhu should scan through all the videos of her past matches and work on her strategy.
Expectations from the Indian male shuttlers will also be high, given their exploits in recent months.
Saina and Busanan engaged in some long rallies but it was the Thai shuttler who had the last laugh
Sindhu lost 7-21, 24-22, 15-21 to Beiwen Zhang of United States in a match that lasted 56 minutes while World Championships bronze-medallst Sai Praneeth was trailing 9-21, 7-11 when he conceded the match to fifth-seeded Anders Antonsen of Denmark due to an unspecified injury.
PM Modi had also taken a review meeting to take stock of how the preparations of India's athletes are going
Sameer Verma stayed on course for his title defence while three-time former champion Saina Nehwal too reached the semifinals with an easy win
After losing seven successive finals, PV Sindhu finally redeemed herself with the gold medal at the World Tour Finals.
World Championships bronze medallist Sen had earlier advanced to the men's singles semi-finals after his opponent Lu Guang Zu of China gave a walkover.
Following is the schedule of Indian contingent on the fifth day of the Asian Games.
Star shuttler Kidambi Srikanth was disappointed after being called for a series of what he termed "ridiculous" service faults during his pre-quarterfinal match against China's Huang Yuxiang at the All England Championship.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Thursday
A summary of Indian athletes' performances on Sunday, August 7, Day 10 of the Birmingham Commonwealth Games.
Gopichand, who shaped Sindhu and Olympic bronze-medallist Saina Nehwal among others, believes it will take some time for the next big star to emerge.
In hockey, the women's team continued its inspiring run with a silver medal at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games.
If only the shooters had found their targets, the story would have been so different! sighs Raj Kishore Mishra.
Indian athletes, including the boxers and shooters, hit the ground running as they started their pre-Olympic training, hoping to live up to massive expectations in the pandemic-hit Games in Tokyo.
