Badminton News: India’s top men’s doubles duo Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty made history by winning a men’s doubles medal at the Asian Badminton Championships after 52 years.
The Indian pair beat Indonesia’s experienced men’s doubles Mohammad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan in back-to-back matches 21-11 21-12 in the quarter-finals in Dubai on Friday.
Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will now face Chinese Taipei’s Lee Yang and Wang Chi-lin in the last four on Saturday (29/4).
Earlier, two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu squandered match advantage to fall to second seed An Se Young of Korea in the women’s singles quarterfinal.
Sindhu, the eighth seed, won the opener 21-18 but looked disastrous in the next two games where she lost 5-21, 9-21 to give Young a place in the semi-finals.
India’s other prospect, eighth seed HS Prannoy, was also eliminated in the men’s singles quarter-final after losing midway through the match to Japan’s Kanta Tsuneyama. Prannoy led 11-21 9-13 when he withdrew due to injury and gave the victory to the Japanese representative.
Earlier in the day, qualifiers Rohan Kapoor and N Sikki Reddy struggled before falling in a three-game mixed doubles match against Indonesians Dejan Ferdinansyah and Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja.
The Indian pair fought for an hour and five minutes before losing in the quarter-finals by a margin of 18-21, 21-19, 15-21.
Article Tags: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, Chirag Shetty, Asian Badminton Championships 2023
