In a first for India, the pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty created history by entering the semifinals of the ongoing Badminton World Championships 2022 as they beat defending champions Takuro Hoki/Yugo Kobayashi of Japan on Friday.
With that win, Satwik/Chirag have assured themselves of a medal at the marquee event and thus becoming the first Indian men’s doubles team to do so.
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In what was their third meeting across competitions, Satwik/Chirag had to dig deep to get the better of their second seeded opponents at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium in Japan.
Satwik/Chirag won in three games 24-22, 15-21 and 21-4 in their quarter-finals clash and thus went ahead of Takuro/Yugo in head-to-head clash by making it 2-1.
The 7th ranked Indians first clashed with their Japanese opponents at the 2018 All England where they emerged victorious before losing to them in Hong Kong (2019).
However, it was curtains for the another Indian men’s doubles pair in the competition. Dhruv Kapila and MR Arjun lost to Hendra Setiawan and Mohammad Ahsan of Indonesia in their quarterfinals clash.
Dhruv-Arjun lost in straight games 8-21, 14-21. The unseeded duo had a good run in the tournament. They upstaged eighth seeds and last edition’s bronze medallists Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen of Denmark 21-17, 21-16 in their second round match.
Olympic bronze medallist Saina Nehwal was knocked out of the championships on Thursday after going down to Busanan Ongbamrungphan in a hard-fought women’s singles pre-quarterfinals. The 32-year-old went down 17-21 21-16 13-21 to her Thai opponent, who extended her head-to-head record against the Indian to 5-3.
In an all-India pre-quarters clash, HS Prannoy defeated CWG gold medallist Lakshya Sen in a gruelling men’s singles clash that lasted one hour and 15 minutes. Prannoy won 17-21, 21-16, 21-17 to make it to the last-eight stage.
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