Abhishek Mishra
There is only one piece of good news for India from badminton. The men’s doubles pair of Satwik Sairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty reached the quarterfinals of the Singapore Open.
The going was bad elsewhere in the Round of 16. HS Prannoy, PV Sindhu, the women’s doubles duo of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand, and Rohan Kapoor and Ruthvika Shivani Gadde in mixed doubles all crashed out.
The Sat-Chi pair defeated Sabar Karyaman Gutama and Muhammad Reza Pahlevi Isfahani in a 74-minute battle. After going down 19-21 in the first game against the Indonesian pair, the Indians won the next two 21-16, 21-19 to seal their place in the quarterfinals. This was the first-ever meeting between Satwik-Chirag and Gutama-Isfahani.
The Singapore Open is Satwik and Chirag’s first tournament since March, when they pulled out of the All England Open because of the latter’s back injury. But the break didn’t seem to affect their game. They opened with a victory against a Malaysian pair in the round of 32 and followed it up with this win over the duo seeded seventh.
The Indians will face a tough test in the quarterfinals against the World No. 1 Malaysian pair of Sze Fei Goh and Nur Izzuddin on Friday. This promises to be a high-octane affair. Earlier this year at the India Open, Goh and Izzuddin defeated Sat-Chi 21-18, 21-14 in the semi-finals. Satwik and Chirag will be looking to avenge that loss.
In men’s singles, Prannoy bowed out after a straight-game defeat against Christo Popov of France. Prannoy made a strong start and was leading 14-8 in the first game, but Popov staged a strong comeback by levelling the scores. He didn’t give Prannoy any further chance and sealed the victory by 21-16, 21-14.
In women’s singles, Sindhu faced world No. 5, China’s Chen Yu Fei. Sindhu’s campaign came to an end after a hard-fought, three-game battle. She lost the opener 9-21, but bounced back by winning the second 21-18. In the decider, Sindhu led 12-9 before Chen raised her game with some heavy smashes and won 21-16.
In women’s doubles, Treesa and Gayatri lost to China’s Jia Yi Fan and Zhang Shu Xian 8-21, 10-21. In mixed doubles, Rohan and Ruthvika went down 10-21, 16-21 against Hong Kong’s Tang Chun Man and Tse Ying Suet.