Third seeds Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have got a fairly comfortable draw for the badminton men's doubles event of Paris Olympic Games 2024. The former world number 1 duo is one of India's strongest gold medal bets at this edition of the quadrennial sports extravaganza. (More Badminton News)
Satwik, 23, and Chirag, 27, have been drawn in group C alongside the Indonesian pair of Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto. The world number six pair will be Satwik-Chirag's most challenging opponents in the group.
Satwik and Chirag, who have had a rollicking run in the past 12 months, have faced Alfian and Ardianto five times so far and lead 3-2 in the head-to-head record against them. The last time these two pairs locked horns was at the Korea Open 2023, where the Indians emerged victors.
Alfian-Ardianto is the only top-10 pair in Group C apart from Satwik and Chirag. Two-time Commonwealth Games gold medallists Satwik-Chirag will also face the world No. 31 German combine of Mark Lamsfuss and Marvin Seidel, and world No. 43 Lucas Corvee and Ronan Labar of France in the group.
The Paris 2024 doubles group stage draw was held at the Badminton World Federation (BWF) headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Monday (July 15). The initial group stage draw for all other events was held on Friday (July 12).
The men's doubles draw was also supposed to be held on Friday, but was postponed due to a Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) hearing over the number of pairs in the draw. The sport's global governing body had to delay the draw after CAS instructed BWF to recommend to the International Olympic Committee that Corvee-Labar be included in the Paris Summer Games.
The inclusion of the French duo has made it a revised 17-pair men's doubles draw, instead of the 16 pairs that had originally qualified.
