The Indian men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty fell short of reaching the final at the BWF World Championships 2025, suffering a tough semi-final defeat to China’s Chen Bao Yang and Liu Yiu at the Adidas Arena in Paris.
The Indian pair lost the match 19-21, 21-18, 12-21 to the world No.11 Chinese duo in the 67-minute last-four clash. With the loss, India’s run at the tournament came to an end with Satwik-Chirag settling for a bronze medal. This marks their second World Championship bronze after their 2022 podium finish in Tokyo.
The semifinal battle began with Satwik and Chirag stepping on the court as favourites and they started the first game like that. The Indian duo raced to a 11-5 lead at the mid-game break. After the interval, the Chinese pair disciplined themselves with better gameplay making it 12-12 and maintained the lead, reaching at the game point with 20-17. The Indians saved two match points but fell short, losing the game 19-21.
The second game once again saw Satwik and Chirag getting a good start and racing to a 7-3 lead in no time. But they made a few errors while going for big smashes and also showed poor deceptions, which narrowed the lead to 11-9 at the interval. After the break, the Indians struggled with the flick serves of their opponents and the game was tied at 17-17. From there on, Satwik and Chirag raised their shot quality and produced a few good flat exchanges, sealing the game 21-18, forcing Chen and Liu into the decider.
Before the start of the deciding game, one could hear coach Tan Kim Her saying, “Don’t follow them too much, calm your nerves and don’t just hit without thinking.”
The third game witnessed the destructive mode of the Chinese duo, scoring points with flick serves and back-hand smashes while dominating the flat rallies. Satwik and Chirag finally opened their account at 1-9 with some good smashes and returns in a dramatic 34-shot rally.
After that, the Indians continued to make errors and struggled against the flick serves, which they failed to read and return properly and were trailing 5-17. A comeback from that position looked impossible, as the Chinese pair’s serves kept disrupting their focus. At 9-20, the Indian pair saved three match points, but it wasn’t enough. They lost the decider 12-21 and had to settle for the bronze medal.
This was the second encounter between Chen and Liu and Satwik and Chirag. The Indians had defeated them in their previous meeting at the Thailand Open final in 2024 in straight games. The Chinese duo have now levelled the head-to-head at 1-1. They will face South Korea’s Kim Won-ho and Seo Seung Jae in the summit clash.
The journey of the Sat-Chi pair at the BWF World Championship 2025 was full of redemption. They defeated two arch-rival pairs of Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang in the pre-quarterfinals, and Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik in the quarterfinals. Unfortunately, they failed to reach the final, ending their journey in the last four.
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