Indian men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty entered the semi-finals of the Swiss Open Super Series 300 badminton tournament after defeating Denmark’s JP Bey and Lasse Molhede in a hard-fought three-game match.
The Indian pair registered a 15-21, 21-11, 21-14 win in 54 minutes in the match played on Friday night.
Satwik and Chirag will next take on Malaysian pair of Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yee. With the early exits of players like PV Sindhu and Lakshya Sen, India’s chances now hinge on the star pair of men’s doubles.
It was not a good start for the Indian pair. At one point in the first game, she was trailing by only one point at 15-16 but after that the Danish pair scored six points in a row to win the first game.
Satwik and Chirag found their rhythm in the second game and took a strong 11-4 lead at the interval. After that, he did not look back and won the second game to take the match to the decider.
The Indian pair did well in the third game as well and led 11-7 at the interval. After this, he took a seven-point lead and maintained it till the end to gracefully make it to the semi-finals.
The Indian pair made a good comeback in this tournament after suffering a first round exit at the All England Championships earlier.
