Shah Alam (Malaysia): The Indian men's team felt the absence of star doubles duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty as it suffered a narrow 2-3 loss to China in the Badminton Asia Team Championships group tie here on Thursday.
Star shuttlers H S Prannoy and Lakshya Sen won their singles matches but China fought back with wins in the two doubles contests to make it 2-2.
National champion Chirag Sen lost 15-21, 16-21 to Wang Zheng Xing in the decider as India conceded the tie.
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India finished second in the group, with China taking the top spot.
It's learnt that Satwik and Chirag were rested by the team management as India had already made it to the quarterfinals after the 1-4 win over Hong Kong on Wednesday.
World No. 7 Prannoy started the proceedings with a gritty 6-21, 21-18, 21-19 win over world No. 16 Weng Hong Yang to put India 1-0 ahead.
In the first doubles, M R Arjun and Dhruv Kapila lost 15-21, 21-19, 19-21 to Chen Bo Yang and Liu Yiin.
Commonwealth Games champion Lakshya Sen then thrashed Lei Lan Xi 21-11, 21-16 in 40 minutes to again bring India back into the lead but Suraj Goala and Pruthvi Krishnamurthy Roy lost 13-21, 9-21 to Ren Xiang Yu and Xie Hao Nan in second doubles.
The Indian women had stunned China 3-2 in their league match to top the group on Tuesday.
