They lost to the world No. 1 Chinese pair of Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang 21-9, 18-21, 17-21 in the double's final in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday.
Five badminton players have been conferred the Khel Ratna so far; Pullela Gopichand (2001), Saina Nehwal (2010), PV Sindhu (2016), Pramod Bhagat (2021) and Krishna Nagar (2021).
The Asian Games champions outpaced world No. 15 Ting, 18th ranked Yu 21-15, 22-20 in the semi-finals of the BWF Super 750 event.
Popularly known as “Sat-Chi”, Satwik and Chirag climbed two spots in the BWF rankings after a historic gold medal in the recently concluded Asian Games badminton men’s doubles event in Hangzhou.
India’s challenge ends in opening round.
The Indians have already won the Swiss and Indonesia Open titles on the 2023 BWF World Tour.
They become the first Indian pair to win Super 1000 title
Shetty and Rankireddy overpowered the Malaysian pair 16-21, 21-17, 21-19 in a thrilling final that lasted an hour and seven minutes.
Through their straight-sets victory in the gold-medal match, Satwik and Chirag added another Commonwealth Games medal to their kitty after the silver medal in the last Games in 2018 Gold Coast.
It was a double delight for India as World championship bronze medallist Lakshya Sen and doubles specialists Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty bagged their first Yonex-Sunrise India Open titles here on Sunday.
