Asia Badminton Championships: Srikanth leads India's 5-0 rout of Maldives

Kidambi Srikanth

World No. 5 Kidambi Srikanth led the charge as India drubbed minnows Maldives 5-0 to make a resounding start in the men's team competition of the Asia Badminton Championships here yesterday. Kidambi started the proceedings, easily outplaying Shaheed Hussein Zayan 21-5, 21-6 in the first singles match, before B Sai Praneeth got the better of Ahmed Nibal 21-10, 21-4. The rest of the tie followed a similar script as Sameer Verma toyed with Mohamed Arsalaan Ali 21-5, 21-1 to take an unassailable 3-0 lead.

In the men's doubles matches, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty beat Shaheed Hussein Zayan and Shaheem Hassan Afsheem 21-8, 21-8 before Arjun MR teamed up with Shlok Ramachandran to tame the pair of Mohamed Arsalaan Ali and Ahmed Nibal 21-2, 21-5.

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