India were knocked out of the Sudirman Cup - badminton's world mixed team championships - after a 5-0 whitewash against Malaysia in the second Group C match in Suzhou, China on Monday.
A day after losing 1-4 to Chinese Taipei, India failed to win a single match against Commonwealth Games champions Malaysia to exit at the group stage for the second successive time. India had beaten Malaysia 4-1 in the group stage at the Asian Mixed Team championships in February.
Singles stars Kidambi Srikanth and PV Sindhu suffered contrasting defeats to seal India's fate while the pairs of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly lost in straight sets to snuff out any hope of resistance.
It was always going to be a tough ask for the scratch mixed doubles pair of Dhruv Kapila and Ashwini Ponnappa to get India on board. In the first match of the day, they went down to the beat the world No 8 pair of Goh Soon Huat and Lai Shevon Jemie 16-21 17-21 in 35 minutes.
India's hope would have been the singles encounters, but Srikanth was too erratic while Sindhu played a rollercoaster three-set battle she couldn't close out.
An error-prone Srikanth lost to 16-21, 11-21 to world No 8 Lee Zii Jia in a lop-sided men's singles contest as the team was 0-2 down after the first two matches.
World No. 12 Sindhu then erased a 2-11 deficit in the third game but couldn't go the distance, losing 21-14, 10-21, 20-22 to world No. 30 Goh Jin Wei in the women's singles as India conceded a 0-3 lead to Malaysia in the five-match tie. With the tie decided, it fell on the men's and women's doubles to avoid a whitewash, but it was not to be. The world No 5 pair of Satwik and Chirag lost to world champions Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik 18-21, 19-21, to extend their losing head-to-head against the Malaysians to 8-0.
Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly went down 15-21, 13-21 to Pearly Tan and Thinaah Muralitharan, who they had beaten in their last encounter at the Badminton Asian Mixed Team championships earlier this year.
Following the loss, India finished at third spot in the group with Chinese Taipei and Malaysia ending as the top two teams to qualify for the quarterfinals. India will take on Australia in their final Group C match on Wednesday.