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.
Schedule
The live streaming of the BWF German Open 2023 quarterfinal matches will be available on BWF TV, the official YouTube channel of the BWF.
Comments
SHARE