No Lakshya, Satwik for Korean tie with Ayush on MS1 duty; Tanvi Sharma loses to World No 10 Gao Fangjie
3 min readFeb 6, 2026 09:00 AM IST
India started Friday glumly as Tanvi Sharma began the Asian Team championship, going down 21-9, 21-9 to World No 10 Gao Fangjie. It was always going to be a tall task for the young World Juniors runners-up, ranked No 42 in seniors.
But she is fast discovering that not only does top-flight badminton need excellent strokes – which she is in possession of – but most Indian shuttlers trying to break through have fallen at the stamina challenge that requires you to play opponents of a fairly high level for 5 straight days with the jeopardy rising with every passing day. Week in, week out.
Playing China’s second string, is as is a severely intimidating prospect for those new on this level, but Fangjie turned on the pace or made Tanvi look slower from the word go. Clearly exhausted from two days of leading India’s WS1 duties, where she beat higher ranked Busanan Ongbamrungphan, Tanvi could raise her levels at any point in the match, after trailing 0-3 in both, and watched India go 0-1 down in the tie.
When India won the title, Ashmita Chaliha and Anmol Kharb besides the dependable Treesa-Gayatri had shored up India despite the WS1 loss, and India will need an encore with Rakshitha Ramraj and Surya Charishma.
Things weren’t looking very bright though with Treesa-Gayatri a set down at 22-24, though they did well to come out of a 10-16 funk and had their chances at 21-21. India’s is a development squad with last minute withdrawal of PV Sindhu and missing on World No 24 Unnati Hooda, but Tanvi needs to address her endurance deficits that cost her games as the week goes deep, even beyond this team event.
No Lakshya, Satwik playing; Hari-Chirag pair up
World No 25 Ayush Shetty will lead India’s charge in men’s again, lining up as MS1, after Lakshya Sen continued to not play after the Japan tie and loss to Loh Kean Yew in the Singapore faceoff.
It is yet unclear if it was a precautionary call against aggravating an injury, or a simple matchup selection, where Ayush takes on Yoo Tae Bin. Koreans are notoriously over-achieving at team events, playing better than what their rankings suggest, and Tae Bin might need a bit of firepower to get thrown at him. Ayush had beaten Kenta Nishimoto on Thursday, but like Tanvi his fitness on back to back days will be tested.
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Satwiksairaj Rankireddy is also not penned in to play. So Hariharan Amsakarunan will pair with Chirag Shetty. Kidambi Srikanth is scribbled in for MS2 to play Choi Ji Hoon while Pruthvi Krishnan – Sai Pratheek resume their partnership for MS2. Tharun Mannepalli is fielded for MS3 against Cho Hyeon Woo, after HS Prannoy wasn’t very effective against Japan.
Much will depend on how Srikanth and Chirag respond to the absence of key teammates. Though Ayush Shetty will need to give India the early boost.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
