New Delhi [India], January 17 (ANI): Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty stayed on course for their second consecutive India Open final with a straight games win over Korea’s Yong Jin and Kang Min Hyuk in the men’s doubles quarterfinals while PV Sindhu and Kiran George were knocked out of the BWF World Tour Super 750 event at the KD Jadhav Indoor Hall on Friday.
Satwik and Chirag were at their dominant best in their quarter-final encounter against South Korea’s Yong Jin and Kang Min Hyuk, winning 21-10, 21-17. However, it was a heartbreak for the other Indians in the ray with Sindhu going down 21-9, 19-21, 21-17 against fourth seed Gregoria Mariska Tunjung in women’s singles while Weng Hong Yang of China defeated Kiran 21-13, 21-19 in the men’s singles quarterfinals, a release from the Badminton Association of India (BAI) stated.
In the other matches, women’s singles top seed An Se Young of South Korea defeated Singapore’s Yeo Jia Min 21-11, 21-12 and Pornpawee Chochuwong of Thailand upset Chinese third seed Han Yue 21-17, 21-16. In the men’s singles quarterfinals, Paris Olympic champion Viktor Axelsen was made to work hard for a 21-19, 13-21, 21-8 victory over former world champion Loh Kean Yew of Singapore.
But it was the pairing of Satwik and Chirag that gave the sizeable crowd at the KD Jadhav Hall enough reasons to celebrate as they played a near-clinical match against the Koreans, who had upset the top seeds and world no. 1 Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen in the opening round.
The Asian Games gold medallists raced to a 9-1 lead in the opening game and then controlled the proceedings to pocket the game in 18 minutes. The Koreas did put up a stronger fight in the second game the Indians were hardly under any pressure.
In the semi-final, they will face third seeds Sze Fei Goh and Nur Izzuddin of Indonesia.
The loss against Tunjung notwithstanding, there were a lot of positives to take home for Sindhu. The 29-year-old, who had been struggling with injuries since the Paris Olympics, struggled with her movement in the opening game but took the fight to her opponent once she found her range.
Trailing 3-9 in the second game, Sindhu began pushing Tunjung to the back of the court thereby nullifying the sharpness of Indonesia’s quick slice drops and keeping the shuttle long enough in play to force an error from her opponent.
She caught up with Tunjung at 9-9 and though both the players stayed neck-and-neck thereafter, Sindhu managed to take the match into a decider by forcing the fourth seed into taking more risks to try and win points.
The former champion continued with the same strategy in the decider and it looked like she could script an upset with both players locked at 17-17. Some brilliant stroke play from Tunjung and a wrong judgement from Sindhu ended up deciding the fate of the match which lasted an hour and two minutes.
“I think it was 17-17 in the third game where some of my strokes were just too parallel and into her hand. If I had played a bit more back, maybe that would have been the difference,” Sindhu said, according to a BAI release.
The 29-year-old, who will next play the Indonesia Masters, was overall satisfied with the performance and looking forward to build on it. “There are a lot of positives to take from this tournament. The quarterfinals is not a bad result. But for me to improve, these are the matches I need to learn from,” she added.
In the men’s singles quarterfinals, Kiran fought hard against Weng and even saved a match point in the second game but an error on a forehand drive ended his hopes of advancing any further in the competition. (ANI)
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