Indonesia Open: Space shuttlers

Jakarta, June 18

India’s dynamic duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty scripted history by winning the men’s doubles title at the Indonesia Open here today, becoming the first pair from the country to claim a Super 1000 crown.

The Indians outwitted the Malaysian world champion duo of Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik 21-17 21-18 in an intense contest that lasted 43 minutes. This was the first victory in eight attempts for the world No. 6 pair against Aaron and Soh.

1 This was the first victory in eight attempts for the world No. 6 Indians against the Malaysian pair

We played amazing badminton today. We didn’t have a good head-to-head record against them, so wanted to play one point at a time and it fetched the result for us. Satwiksairaj Rankireddy

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“We had prepared very well for this event,” Satwiksairaj said. “We knew the crowd will be supporting us. They have supported us all week. We played amazing badminton today. We didn’t have a good head-to-head record against them, so wanted to play one point at a time and it fetched the result for us,” he added.

“More than winning the tournament, beating them is one of the highs. When we play (them) next time, we will play all-in again,” he added.

The Indians gained initiative midway through the first game and did not let their opponents make a comeback. In the second game as well, the Indians did not allow their opponents to break free and a four-point streak kept them ahead of the curve.

The Malaysians saved four match points but Satwiksairaj and Chirag, who won gold at the Commonwealth Games and bronze at the World Championships last year, could not be denied.

Special achievement

“Beating Aaron and Soo was what we truly wanted to do because we had come close but we had sort of held ourselves back a bit,” Chirag said.

“But this time we executed the plan and it paid huge dividends. But as Satwik said, this is just the start, we have to win even bigger tournaments,” he added.

Satwiksairaj said early exits in the last two tournaments came as a wakeup call. “We are very happy with this performance after a bad couple of months. We had become lazy and passive with thoughts like ‘it is under control’, but it is not. The last two tournaments was a wakeup call for us, we told ourselves, ‘be alert otherwise we would be smashed in the first round itself’,” Satwiksairaj said.