The star Indian duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty won in straight games to seal their semi-final berth in the ongoing China Masters Super 750 tournament in Shenzhen. (More Badminton News)
The Indian pairing beat Denmark’s Anders Skaarup Rasmussen and Kim Astrup 21-16, 21-19 to progress to the next stage of the event.
In their first tournament appearance since the heartbreak in Paris 2024, the Satwik-Chirag pair have fought their way through and have shown serious signs of promise.
The first game of the quarter-final saw the Indian duo race away to a 6-2 lead but a bit of a fight from the Denmark pairing got them back into the game at 10-7.
However, it was all one-way traffic as India took the first game 21-16.
The second game started off on a very similar note, but the Denmark resilience had them ahead in the game at 8-9.
The battle went on and the Satwik-Chirag had to pull the trigger, raising their quality and only just edged the second game 21-19.
“Results wise, the last two matches we got back our rhythm, especially in the first round against the Chinese Taipei pair. Did not really know what was going on in the first game, but slowly and steadily got our rhythm back, and especially today, we were quite at our level,” Chirag Shetty told BAI after their win.
The challenge in the semi-final clash is expected to get tougher when they face either Japan's Takuro Hoki and Yugo Kobayashi or Korea’s Jin Yong and Seo Seung Jae.
