Satwik-Chirag beat All England champs, march into quarters
Two months have passed since that historic evening at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium when Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty became the first Indian men’s doubles pair to medal at the World Championships.
Much water has flowed under the bridge ever since. Rankireddy went home to Amalapuram to spend some much-needed time with his family. Shetty took a long-awaited break and travelled to Goa to “chill” with his friends.
But much hasn’t changed when it comes to their on-court performance. The world No 8 combine have continued their menacing form – for their opponents – with which they started the year to scalp yet another big shot pair on Thursday.
Rankireddy and Shetty took just 36 minutes to beat reigning All England Open champions Muhammad Shohibul Fikri and Bagas Maulana of Indonesia to enter the quarter-finals of the $750,000 Denmark Open at the Jyske Bank Arena in Odense.
This was their second victory in as many meetings against the world No 14 duo, having also beaten the Indonesians in the opening round of the Swiss Open in Basel in March.
The Indian pair has been in sensational form in the last few months. They guided India to an unprecedented Thomas Cup crown in Bangkok in May before becoming the first Indian men’s doubles pair to win gold at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. They then followed up by becoming the first Indian men’s doubles pair to win a medal (bronze) at the World Championships.
Having comprehensively won the first game, the seventh-seeded Indians were looking to quickly close the contest. But Fikri and Maulana fought back in the second game, not allowing Rankireddy and Shetty to run away with the contest. Neither pair gave the other more than a two-point gap until 17-16 when Rankireddy and Shetty clinched the next four points to pocket the game and contest.
In the first round on Wednesday, the Thomas Cup champions had beaten South Koreans Kang Min Hyuk and Seo Seung Jae in straight games for their second victory in three meetings.
On Friday, Rankireddy and Shetty will have to beat reigning world champions and Malaysian fourth seeds Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik – a pair they have never beaten in six previous face-offs, including all three times this year. The last time the two pairs met, the world No 4 Malaysians came out on top in a thriller in the semi-finals of the World Championships in August.
In other Round of 16 matches involving Indians at the Super 750 tournament, Japanese second seeds Yuta Watanabe and Arisa Higashino defeated Ishaan Bhatnagar and Tanisha Crasto 23-21, 21-13 in 47 minutes in mixed doubles while Thai women’s doubles sixth seeds Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Rawinda Prajongjai accounted for the loss of Treesa Jolly and P Gayatri Gopichand, beating the Indian pairing 21-16, 21-10 in 31 minutes.
In men’s singles action, former world champion Loh Kean Yew of Singapore beat Kidambi Srikanth 21-13, 21-15 in a rematch of the 2021 World Championship final. Despite leading at the start of the contest, Srikanth’s spark just fizzled out as the seventh-seeded Singaporean pressed the foot on the accelerator to quickly pocket the first game. Loh gave the former world No 1 Indian no opportunity in the second game to quickly close the contest in just 35 minutes.
Later, Lakshya Sen beat friend and compatriot HS Prannoy 21-9, 21-18 in 39 minutes to book a berth in the quarter-finals where he will face the winner of the match between China’s Lu Guang Zu and Japan’s Kodai Naraoka. This was Sen’s third win in five meetings against Prannoy.
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