India Open: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty Eke Out First Round Win

Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty advanced to the second round of the men’s doubles event at India Open Super 750 tournament on Wednesday.

World No. 2 Satwik and Chirag, who had finished runner-up at Malaysia Super 1000 last week in Kuala Lumpur, eked out a 21-15 19-21 21-16 win over Fang-Chih Lee and Fang-Jen Lee of Chinese Taipei.

Satwik and Chirag, the Asian Games gold medallists, looked sharp as they opened up a lead and earned the bragging rights by grabbing the opening game. But Fang-Chih and Fang-Jen managed to claw back in the second game to take a 11-5 lead at the break.

The Indian pair however led a late fight back to narrow it down to 18-19 but their opponents held their nerves to force a decider.

In the final game, Satwik and Chirag once again dominated the rallies with their attacking strokes to come up trumps.

“We are really happy with the way we are playing and the way we have started. We have worked a lot on our defence over the past two years and it has brought a new facet in our armor because you can’t always rely on your attack in these slow conditions.

“We are happy to get that first win here and hopefully, we go deep into the tournament,” Satwik said.

Earlier, Kidambi Srikanth was knocked out in the first round after he went down to Lee Cheuk Yiu of Hong Kong in straight games, 22-24, 13-21. World No. 20 Tanisha Crasto and Ashwini Ponnappa, who had won the Guwahati Masters Super 100 last December, went down fighting to world No. 10 Thai pair of Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Rawinda prajongjai 5-21 21-18 11-21 in their women’s doubles opener.

Sathish Kumar Karunakaran and Aakarshi Kashyap also faced defeats, losing to Japan’s Takuma Obayashi and China’s Chen Yu Fei respectively.

Among other Indians, the men’s pair of Krishna Prasad Garaga and Sai Pratheek, and women’s duo of Ashwini Bhat and Shikha Gautam went down in straight games to make an early exit from the tournament.

(With inputs from Agencies)