French Open badminton: Chirag-Satwik beat world champions to enter final
The Indians reached the final of their season-opening Malaysia Open but lost to the then-world No. 1 Chinese pair of Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang.
Young doubles player Satwiksairaj Rankireddy displayed unrelenting will and stamina as he played four matches on the qualifying round to make it to the main draw of both men’s and mixed doubles events at the Japan Super Series here on Tuesday.
The 17-year-old from Andra Pradesh paired up with his men’s doubles partner Chirag Shetty to edge past Japan’s Hirokatsu Hashimoto and Hiroyuki Saeki 14-21 22-20 21-18 in the opening round and then defeated another local combination of Keiichiro Matsui and Yoshinori Takeuchi 21-18 21-12 to qualify for the main draw.
The Indian duo, who had reached their maiden Super Series quarterfinals last week at Korea, will face third seeded Indonesian combo of Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo on Thursday.
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Satwik also paired up with Ashwini Ponnappa to beat Japanese combo of Hiroki Midorikawa and Natsu Saito 21-13 21- 15 and then the Indian combo notched up a 21-18 21-9 win over another local pair of Hiroki Okamura and Naru Shinoya 21-18 21-9 to enter the main draw of mixed doubles event.
The new Indian mixed doubles pair, who had been in good form at the Sudirman Cup, will take on Thailand’s Tinn Isriyanet and Pacharapun Chochuwong tomorrow.
However, it was curtains for Parupalli Kashyap in the men’s singles qualifying round. The 31-year-old from Hyderabad defeated Denmark’s Emil Holst 21-15 21-14 in the opening round before going down narrowly to Japan’s Yu Igarashi 11-21 21-18 14-21 to crash out of the event.
In the main draw of mixed doubles, Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy overcame Japan’s Tomoya Takashina and Rie Etoh 21-19 17-21 21-15 to advance to the second round here.
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