The men’s doubles pairing of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty is the only Indian hope alive in the Swiss Open Super 300 badminton tournament in Basel after last edition’s women’s singles champion P.V. Sindhu bowed out.
World no. 6 Satwik and Chirag, the second seed, will play Denmark’s world no 27 Jeppe Bay-Lasse Molhede on Friday night with an aim to make their second semifinal of the year.
Satwik and Chirag started the year with a last-four finish at the Malaysia Open but could not impress since pulling out of the India Open due to injuries. They made a second-round exit from the All England Open last week.
The Indian combo, on Thursday, survived some anxious moments after they went 12-21 down in the first game against Taiwan’s unseeded pair of Fang-Chih Lee and Fang-Jen Lee.
Satwik-Chirag, however, found a way to prevail 21-17 in the second game, paving the way for a thrilling third game. The decider saw both the pairings conceding match-point opportunities before the Indians prevailed 28-26.
Friday’s meeting against Jeppe and Lasse will be Satwik and Chirag’s second since BWF World Championships 2022 when the Indians defeated the Danes in straight games in the pre-quarterfinals.
Assuming they would advance to the semifinals, Satwik and Chirag would be facing the winner of the tie between Muhammad Shohibul Fikri-Bagas Maulana and Ong Yew Sin-Teo Eeyin in the semifinals on Saturday.
On the other half of the draw, Japanese Akira Koga-Taichi Saito will play Ren Xiang Yu-Tan Qiang of China, and Ayato Endo-Yuta Takei of Japan will face England’s Ben Lane-Sean Vendy for a place in the semifinals.
The live streaming of the BWF German Open 2023 quarterfinal matches will be available on BWF TV, the official YouTube channel of the BWF.
