Jakarta Aug 20 (IANS) India crashed out of the Asian Games womens badminton team event on Monday after going down 1-3 to a formidable Japan in the quarter-finals here on Monday.
India failed to emulate their 2014 Incheon bronze medal feat here as only Rio Olympics silver medallist P.V.Sindhu managed to pull off a narrow win over world number one Akane Yamaguchi in the singles match while her compatriot Saina Nehwal and the women s doubles pair of Sindhu and Ashwini Ponnappa and N.Sikki Reddy and Arathi Sunil lost their respective matches.
In what turned out to be a close affair in the opening singles match Sindhu got the better of Yamaguchi 21-18 21-19. Sindhu who took 41 minutes to put India ahead had also beaten Yamaguchi at the recent World Championship on the way to the final.
Japan equalised the affair 1-1 after Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hiroto thrashed the Indian pair of Sikki and Arathi in straight games to 21-15 21-6.
Thereafter in the second singles match Saina made a dramatic comeback to save four match points in the second game before going down to Nozomi Okuhara 11-21 25-23 16-21 in one hour and 11 minutes.
Trailing 1-2 in the affair India then lost the must-win fourth match with Sindhu and Ashwini meekly surrendering 13-21 12-21 to Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahasi.

--IANS tri/bg