Indonesia Open: Satwik-Chirag, Prannoy win big, Srikanth bows out

HS Prannoy and doubles pair of Chirag Shetty-Satwiksairaj Rankireddy on Friday showed why they are the only Indians to be in the top 10 of the Badminton World Federation (BWF) rankings.

The most consistent of all Indian shuttlers this year, Prannoy and Shetty-Rankireddy clinched sensational victories to enter the semi-finals of the $1.25 million Indonesia Open – one of the four elite Super 1000 tournaments of the BWF World Tour.

Having already clinched men’s doubles crowns at the Swiss Open and Badminton Asia Championships earlier this year, the world No.6 pair continued their brilliant run of form by silencing the partisan crowd supporting home favourites Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto when they beat the world No.1 combine 21-13, 21-13 in 41 minutes at the famous Istora Senayan.

The reigning Commonwealth Games champions completely blew away the reigning All England champions, who are also top seeds in Jakarta, to earn their second win in four meetings against the Indonesians.

“We didn’t really have time after the Asian Championships that we won. We didn’t play well at the Sudirman Cup, the Thailand Open and the Singapore Open. That was the lowest low we could’ve gone," Shetty was quoted as saying by the BWF. The pairing suffered a first-round exit at the Singapore Open last week.

“Both of us were quite depressed with the way we played. We spoke to each other and knew we had to go higher. The way we got back this week, beating the Chinese yesterday and today the world No.1 on their home court, it couldn’t have gone any better. But we’re still hungry and we want to go all the way.”

Shetty and Rankireddy have a solid chance of entering their third final of the year as they face world No.12 combine Kang Min Hyuk and Seo Seung Jae on Saturday with the Thomas Cup champions having a 2-1 career advantage.

“After Swiss Open and after the Asian Championships, we were on a 10-match winning streak – I wouldn’t say we were not hungry at all, but there was slight dip. A few matches here and there and suddenly the confidence went down," added Shetty.

“The Singapore Open was one of those matches when we felt really bad, after going out in the first round, and we knew we had to come back, and from then on we pushed as hard as possible in the one week we got, in training. The results are showing. The main aspect is the hunger to win, and we had that this week.”

Seventh seed Prannoy too had a stupendous victory when he beat upcoming star and Japanese third seed Kodai Naraoka 21-18, 21-16 in 55 minutes in the quarter-finals. It was a defining win for the Indian, who won the Malaysia Masters title last month, as he had never beaten the world No.4 in four previous meetings.

The going gets tougher for the world No.9 Prannoy as he faces the reigning Olympic and world champion Viktor Axelsen for a place in the final. While the world No.1 Dane has a 5-2 record against Prannoy, significantly the Pullela Gopichand protégé won the last two encounters between the two.

However, it was the end of the road for former world No.1 Kidambi Srikanth who went down 14-21, 21-14, 12-21 in an hour and nine minutes to reigning All England champion Li Shifeng of China.

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