Commonwealth Games silver medallists Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty suffered a straight-game loss to world No. 1 pair of Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo in the semifinals of the French Open Super 750 tournament on Saturday.
World No. 25 pair of Satwiksairaj and Chirag put up a gallant fight in the second game but couldn’t stop the two-time All England Champions from Indonesia, and went down 12-21, 24-26 in a 42-minute match.
The Indian duo had a 0-4 head-to-head record against Marcus and Kevin who have dominated international badminton, winning nine titles last year and claiming six crowns this season, including the Asian Games gold.
Satwiksairaj and Chirag’s loss brought an end to India’s challenge in the tournament as Olympic medallist P.V. Sindhu and defending champion Kidambi Srikanth had lost their quarterfinal matches on Friday night.
Third seed Sindhu lost 13-21, 16-21 in 40 minutes against seventh seed He Bingjiao of China on Friday night.
It was Sindhu’s second consecutive loss at the hands of the Chinese shuttler this year after her straight-game defeat in Indonesia Open in July. By virtue of this win, Bingjiao extended her head-to-head record to 7-5 against the Indian.
Earlier in the day, Saina Nehwal yet again failed to crack the code of top seed Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei, losing 20-22, 11-21 in another quarterfinal encounter.
To make matters worse for India, fifth seed Srikanth gave a good account of himself but eventually lost steam against top seed Kento Momota of Japan.
Srikanth fought hard in both the games but failed to reach the finishing line, losing 16-21, 19-21 to slump to his seventh consecutive and fifth straight loss this year against the Japanese opponent.
Srikanth’s last defeat against Momota came in the semifinals of the Denmark Open last week.
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