Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty scaled a new high on Sunday when they emerged as men’s doubles champions in the Indonesia Open to be the first pair from the country to win a Super 1000 event.
The victory was sweeter because it came against the Malaysian world champion duo of Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik. The Indians’ superb 21-17, 21-18 win came after an intense contest that lasted 43 minutes.
It has been a long journey for the world No.6 pair, with grit and self-belief driving them all the way.
“Winning in Indonesia is never easy, a lot of legends play here. It is one of our dream tournaments... from the start, it was (about) at least getting an entry, and from there to winning this is a long journey,” said Satwik after their triumph.
“We had prepared very well for this event. This has been an amazing week for us. We played amazing badminton today (Sunday). 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,” Satwik added.
How tough was the challenge for the Indians? They had failed to overpower Aaron and Soh in 8 previous attempts.
Besides the trophy, defeating such a top pair has its own satisfaction, said Satwik.
“More than winning the tournament, beating them is one of the highs. When we play (them) next time, we will play all-in again. We were playing well, we were in control.”
Chirag echoed his partner’s sentiments. “More than winning the tournament, beating Aaron and Soh was what we truly wanted to do because we had come close to beating them in the past, but we sort of held ourselves back a bit.
“But this time we reached up to the plan and it paid huge dividends. But... this is just the start, we have to win even bigger tournaments,” Chirag said.
While Satwik and Chirag are the first doubles team from India to win the Indonesia Open, Saina Nehwal (2010, 2012) and Kidambi Srikanth (2017) have triumphed in Jakarta in singles events.
On Sunday, Chirag was outstanding at the net with his speedy interceptions and defence and was one of the main reasons behind theIndian pair pulling off the tough match.
The BWF (Badminton World Federation) World Tour is divided into six levels — World Tour Finals, Super 1000, Super 750, Super 500, and Super 300 and Super 100.
All these categories offer ranking points. The Super 1000 level provides the highest number of ranking points.
Gopi’s impact
The triumphant Indian pair said that the presence of Pullela Gopichand at the courtside made a big impact in their success.
“(We are) very happy with this performance after a bad past two months. We had become lazy and passive with thoughts like ‘it is under control’, but it is not,” said Satwik.
“We practised really hard with the coaches, physios and trainers. I have an injury-prone body, but I would say (credit) the efforts (put) behind by the team.
“Even Gopi Sir came after a long time for our matches, I felt like he is a magician on the court. I feel so positive when he is there,” he added.
Written with inputs from PTI
