Kidambi Srikanth came up with a poor performance as India went down to Malaysia 1-3 in the final of the mixed team competition and settled for a silver in the Commonwealth Games 2022.
Former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth suffered a shock defeat as India succumbed 1-3 to Malaysia in the final of the mixed team competition to settle for silver in the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Srikanth lost to lower-ranked Tze Yong Ng in three games to put the defending champions on the backfoot in the final.
With Malaysia 2-1 up, India's hope depended on the young doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand who lost to the experienced Malaysian pair of Koong Le Pearly Tan and Thinaan Muralitharan 21-18, 2-17 to end the country's hopes of winning gold.
PV Sindhu was the only one to win her match.
The Indian contingent had reached Birmingham as defending champions in three categories. However, it has been able to retain the gold medal in only one. The Indian women's table tennis team had previously failed to defend its title as it went down to Malaysia in the quarterfinals, leaving the Men's TT team as the only side to retain the gold medal it had won at Gold Coast in 2018.
This time, the Malaysians pulled the plug on their more famous opponents, who were the better team on paper. There was a lot more revenge of sorts on the day as Singapore defeated hosts England to win the bronze medal, avenging their defeat at the same stage four years ago.
We were expecting Sindhu and Srikanth to win their respective matches. But that did not happen. Srikanth lost unexpectedly. I would not blame Treesa and Gayatri as they tried their best, I am happy with them, they will become better as they gain experience."
