Saina Nehwal and HS Prannoy won bronze at the Asia Championships after losing in the semifinals to Tai Tzu Ying and Chen Long respectively. Earlier, India's top-ranked singles players, PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth had lost in the quarterfinals.
Both Saina and Prannoy lost in straight games to the defending champions. While Saina lost 25-27, 19-21 in 45 minutes, Prannoy lost 16-21, 18-21 in a grueling match, which lasted 52 minutes.
This is only the second time after 2014 that India has won two medals in a single edition of the continental championships. This was Saina's third medal at the tournament, while Prannoy became the third Indian to medal in the men's singles event at the Championships.
Saina had previously won bronze in 2010 and 2016 while Sindhu had also won a bronze in 2014. Prannoy joined Dinesh Khanna (1965) and Anup Sridhar,(2007), who had won gold and bronze respectively in the same tournament previously. Khanna remains the only Indian to win gold at the continental championships.
This was only Saina's fourth loss in 24 matches this year. Interestingly, three of her four losses this year have come against world no. 2 Tai. Saina had won her previous 14 matches this year, which included two golds at the Commonwealth Games in the women's singles and mixed team events.
Prannoy had narrowly missed out on a medal at the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast after losing the bronze medal match to England's Rajiv Ouseph.
World no. 3 Sindhu lost to former champion Sung Ji Hyun and world no. 5 Srikanth lost to two-time champion Lee Chong Wei in straight games on Friday.
Both Saina and Prannoy will next be in action in the Australia Open in May. Saina is a two-time champion at that tournament, having won the title in 2014 and 2016.
With the Asian Games scheduled in August this year, both Saina and Prannoy will be among the favourites to finish on the podium at the quadrennial event.