RAJGIR: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty had beaten Chen Bo Yang and Liu Yi to clinch the Thailand Open in May 2024, the last time they won a title. It was the same Chinese pair standing between them and their first final in 15 months in Paris late on Saturday. Only this time the stakes were higher, the stage bigger.
But it proved a bridge too far as the Indian pair lost a topsy-turvy men’s doubles semi-final 19–21, 21-18, 12-21 in 67 minutes to end their BWF World Championships campaign with a bronze, their second, having finished with the same medal in 2022.
“This week has been really good. (We) played some really good matches, beat pairs who we’ve not had a good record against. But sad that we couldn’t play the final. We really wanted to. But overall good to win a bronze,” said Shetty.
By claiming the bronze in Paris, Rankireddy and Shetty extended India’s medal-winning streak at the Worlds, winning at least one medal in every edition since 2011. They are only the third Indian pair/player to win multiple medals at the annual competition after PV Sindhu (5) and Saina Nehwal (2).
Good start
The relatively young Chinese pair was nervous at the start. The world No.9 Indian combine gained confidence from their opponent’s nervy game to come up with super quick responses and open up a handsome 11-5 lead.
The Chinese took time to settle down but once they did, Yang Yi started digging deep. The world No.11 are also specialists in defence, and time and again frustrated their opponents with fantastic retrievals at the Adidas Arena. The 11th seeds were not afraid to be creative in defence.
When it looked like the ninth seeds had the game under control, Yang and Yi fought back to draw level at 12-all. At 6 ft 3 inches tall, Yang used his height with his jump smashes. He also disguised his shots beautifully to flummox the Indians and win points at crucial junctures and take the lead.
Rankireddy used all his energy to fire in his big smashes but their opponents were able to retrieve and eke out points to earn three game points. Rankireddy and Shetty saved two but the Chinese converted the third.
Just like the opener, the ninth seeds started the second game well to go 7-3 up but the Chinese levelled scores at 8-all. Yi, nervous at the start, gained confidence to launch a series of smashes that were too much to take for the Indian pair.
Yang’s flick serve
Rankireddy and Shetty brought out their attacking best to lead 16-11 but the Chinese, especially Yang, used the flick serve well to catch the Indians off guard and draw level at 16-all. The former world No.1 pair tried to break the momentum by changing the shuttle or asking the floor to be mopped. That helped as the Indian combine pulled through to level the contest.
Winning the second game should have helped Rankireddy and Shetty maintain their momentum. However, the opposite happened as the Chinese pulled out an unbelievable 9-0 lead in the decider.
While Rankireddy inexplicably made multiple service faults, Shetty was regularly bluffed by the Chinese with their flick serve. Eager to respond early to Yang and Yi’s serve, the 28-year-old launched himself to the front as the Chinese flicked to the back, either wrong-footing Shetty and getting him off-balanced or forcing him to hand them an easy kill at the net.
The Chinese kept opening the gap which made the reigning Asian Games champions lose confidence, leading to loss of coordination and also rare racquet clashes. The Chinese exploited that by winning more points to open up a gap of 16-5.
Brimming with confidence, Yi came up with some acrobatic backhand smashes to reach match point at 20-10. Rankireddy and Shetty saved two but the former’s wide shot meant that the Chinese reached their third final of the year.
“We didn’t really get any rhythm and gave away easy points. We should have been a little smarter. But credit to them, they could put us out of place and served quite well from the start of the third game. We could have made a few changes like not rushing into the service because they were serving quite deep,” said Shetty.
