Satwik-Chirag duo storms into semifinals of India Open

Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty advance to India Open men's doubles semifinals with dominant win.

They walked in as India’s lone hopes for a home champion and walked out making a statement.

Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty stayed on course to go one better on their runner-up finish last year with a comprehensive 21-10, 21-17 win against Korea’s Yong Jin and Kang Min Hyuk to enter the men’s doubles semifinals at the India Open on Friday. The seventh-seeds will next face third-seeds Sze Fei Goh and Nur Izzuddin of Indonesia for a spot in their second consecutive final.

Coming in as the last Indians standing after the heartbreaks of P. V. Sindhu and Kiran George earlier in the day, Satwik and Chirag gave the sizeable and very vocal crowd enough reasons to cheer, starting on the front foot and staying on top all through. Even when the Koreans looked like staging a minor fightback towards the end of the second game, there was no reason for concern as the Indians wrapped up in 41 minutes, their shortest match here so far.

The Indian pair raced to a 9-1 lead, then controlled the proceedings to pocket the game in just 18 minutes. Aggressive and attacking, they gave the Koreans no breathing space with relentless smashes and constant switching on the court and continued in the same vein in the second game. With a 13-8 lead, the World No. 9 Indians were in a hurry to finish but the Koreans began mixing up their serves and tightened their defence to push back, levelling at 16-16 but the Indians held their nerves to up the ante and shut the door on them.

Earlier, it looked like Sindhu had finally found a chink in Gregoria Mariska Tunjung’s otherwise airtight armour before faltering towards the end to bow out 21-9, 19-21, 21-17 in the quarterfinals against the petite Indonesian. The Indian double Olympic medallist had looked lost, then changed gears and moved, smashed and almost powered her way past her opponent before the latter latched on to the smallest of errors.

Indira Gandhi Stadium’s K. D. Jadhav Indoor Hall was witness to simultaneous, contrasting results for two of the biggest crowd favourites. While Sindhu faltered, on the adjacent court, two-time champion Viktor Axelsen dug deep to win his quarterfinal against Singapore’s Kean Yew Loh 21-19, 13-21, 21-8. Last-minute entrant Kiran George’s dream run, however, ended with a fighting 13-21, 19-21 loss to China’s Hong Yang  Weng.

The results (quarterfinals): Men’s singles: Lee Cheuk Yiu (Hkg) bt Chou Tien Chen (Tpe) 21-15, 21-8; 3-Viktor Axelsen (Den) bt Loh Kean Yew (Sin) 21-19, 13-21, 21-8; Weng Hong Yang (Chn) bt Kiran George (Ind) 21-13, 21-19; Doubles: Aaron Chia & Soh Wooi Yik (Mas) bt Kittinupong Kedren & Dechapol Puavaranukroh (Tha) 21-18, 21-18; Kim Won Ho & Seo Seung Jae (Kor) bt Liang Wei Keng & Wang Chang (Chn) 12-21, 22-20, 23-21;  Goh Sze Fei & Nur Izzuddin (Mas) bt Fang-Chih Lee & Fang-Jen Lee (Tpe) 21-11, 21-17;  Satwiksairaj Rankireddy &  Chirag Shetty (Ind) bt Yong Jin & Kang Min Hyuk (Kor) 21-10, 21-17.