Satwiksairaj, Chirag become first Indian men’s doubles pair to win a BWF Super 500 tournament

08/04/2019

Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, on Sunday, became the first Indian men’s doubles pair to win the BWF Super 500 tournament winning a three-game thriller in the Thailand Open finals. The unseeded Indian duo beat third seeds Li Jun Hui and Liu Yu Chen, of China 21-19 18-21 21-18.

In their first final of the 2019 season, the Indian duo, ranked 16th in the world, was faced with a tough battle against the Chinese pair.

Unlike the semi-finals, the Indians broke away from 3-all in the opening game to take a 10-6 lead. Although the opponents clawed their way back to 14-14 after the mid-game break, the Indian pair edged out a closely fought affair at 20-19.

In the second game, the no.3 seeds found themselves in trouble at 2-6, but recovered well to earn parity at the break. When the game resumed at 11-all, it was a see-saw battle that followed with the pairs exchanging leads. The Indians led 18-16, after which the Chinese pair won five consecutive points to stun their opponents.

It seemed like the rivals would run away with the momentum from the previous game, but Rankireddy and Chirag managed to stay in the game till 6-all. After that, the title was not in doubt as the Indians always maintained an edge over their opponents. Although the Chinese pair closed the gap to 19-18, the Indians were in no mood to throw away the title. They calmly disposed off the next two points to claim history for India. The final lasted an hour and two minutes.

Rankireddy and Chirag had previously won the silver medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.