The young Indian women’s team faced a quarterfinal exit against hosts China at the 2026 Badminton Asia Team Championships in Qingdao on Friday. The defending champion faced a 0-3 defeat to the tough Chinese team after losing the first three matches of the tie, finishing the tournament without a medal. China was always expected to be a tough opponent for India, having multiple top-ranked players in the lineup incuding world no. 10 Gao Fang Jie in singles. Gao started the match for China with a thrashing 21-9, 21-9 win over the 17-year-old Tanvi Sharma, giving the home team a very strong start to the tie. Following that, the world no.4 pairing of Jia Yi Fan and Zhang Shu Xian edged past the top-ranked Indian duo of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand, 24-22, 21-17. The young indian pair fought bravely against such a higher-ranked pair to come back from a 7-point deficit to force extra points in the opening game. However, they couldn’t finish the game, losing closely 22-24, and then shifted the momentum back to …