Sankar Muthusamy’s fine campaign at the BWF world junior badminton championships came to an end as the Indian lost to Kuo Kim Lin of Chinese Taipei 14-21, 20-22 in the final here on Sunday. Sankar became the second Indian male to win a silver after Siril Verma in 2015.
Kuo unsettled Sankar with his fiery smashes from the back of the court. The Taipei boy ran a 13-9 lead and it looked like he would close out the first game as Sankar wasn’t in his element in long rallies committing a lot of unforced errors at the net and back of the court.
Sankar fought back admirably to level the scores to 13-each, with his trademark defence and good retrievals. The former World No.1 made a series of unforced errors at the net as the Taipei lad won six straight points and didn’t look back.
Kuo, who started aggressively in the first game wasn’t attacking as much as he did in the first game for a brief while even as the Indian was getting better with his short selection.
Though Sankar came back to reduce the lead to 10-12, Kuo raced ahead to 15-10 by attacking rarely but decisively.
Kuo found his attacking rhythm and he raced away to a 17-13 lead. Trailing 14-20, Sankar saved six match points, but Kuo closed out the match with his trademark cross-court smash.
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