Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty on Sunday became the first Indian pair to win a BWF Super 500 badminton tournament with a hard-fought victory over Li Jun Hui and Liu Yu Chen of China in the summit clash of Thailand Open in Bangkok.
The unseeded Indian duo prevailed 21-19 18-21 21-18 over the third seeded Chinese pair after battling hard for an hour and two minutes.
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It was the first final of the 2019 season for Satwik and Chirag, the men’s doubles silver medallist at 2018 Commonwealth Games.
“It’s the biggest title we’ve won so far in our career and I’m just speechless,” said Chirag after the match. “Playing in the final and beating the current world champions...I’m out of words right now. Very, very, extremely happy.
“I think we kept our calm right through the tournament. We didn’t lose hope even when we were down 4-1 in the third game today. We remained calm and steady instead of hurrying things and giving them a bigger lead. We stuck to our plan of keeping the shuttle low and that helped us get the lead.”
Satwik and Chirag got off to a good start as they broke away from 3-3 early on and moved ahead to open up a 10-6 lead, but their Chinese opponents kept breathing down their necks and made it 14-14.
It was a closely fought affair after that and the world No 16 Indian pair could take a slight edge only at 20-18.
Although the Chinese duo narrowed down the gap further to 19-20, the Indians managed to win the crucial point to wrap up the first game.
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In the second game, the Indians managed to take an upper hand as they moved to a 6-2 lead but the Chinese soon bridged the gap to 5-6 before catching up with them at 11-11.
After the interval, the Chinese duo surged ahead to 13-11 but the Indians lifted their game and drew parity at 13 apiece.
The Indians then overtook their opponents to 16-14 and then climbed up to 18-16 before the Chinese pair won five consecutive points to stun the Indians and take the match to the decider.
Satwik and Chirag were slow off the blocks in the third game but managed to make it 6-6. From there on, the Indians never looked back and kept their composure to maintain the edge over their rivals till the end.
Even though the Chinese pair fought back and at one stage reduced the gap to 18-19, the Indians looked in no mood to climb down and went on to pocket two consecutive points to seal the match in their favour.
[With inputs from PTI]
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