All england championships: ‘Tired’ Satwik-Chirag make tame exit

Birmingham, March 15

World No. 1 Indian pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty bowed out in the men’s doubles pre-quarterfinals of the All England Championships after a straight-game defeat to Muhammad Shohibul Fikri and Bagas Maulana of Indonesia on Thursday night.

Satwiksairaj and Chirag lost 16-21 15-21 to the Indonesians, who had won the tournament back in 2022.

The top-seeded Indians, who had won the French Open last week, could not sustain the pressure on their on their third-seeded rivals and went down in 44 minutes. It was Satwiksairaj and Chirag’s third defeat to the Indonesian pair in seven meetings. The Indian duo had beaten Fikri and Maulana in straight games in Malaysia in January.

“There was some tiredness, we couldn’t put them under pressure. You can’t be playing finals every week but we tried to push them as much as possible,” Chirag said.

Satwiksairaj-Chirag looked like a pale shadow of the duo which won in Paris last week. Their frontcourt game wasn’t up to the mark.

The Indonesians started off strongly, making it 4-2 and then 11-6 in a jiffy, with the help of some stinging smashes. They then zoomed to 15-8 but the Indians trimmed it to 12-16 with four straight points. Though Satwiksairaj was struggling at the forecourt, the Indian duo managed to hold on till 16-19 but their counterparts turned on the afterburners soon.

In the second game, the Indonesians seemed in a hurry to seal the tie. They raced to an 8-3 lead but the Indians pulled it back to behind by 6-11 at the interval, with Indian coach Mathias Boe asking for composure all along.

It worked as an engrossing rally ensued but Fikri smashed it home to make it 12-8. The Indians managed to trim the lead to two points, with scores reading 13-14. However, their rivals shifted gears to lead 17-13 and reeled in five match points to end the contest. — Agencies

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