India’s Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty stormed into the men’s doubles quarterfinals of the Indonesia Open World Tour Super 1000 event with a straight-game win over top seeds Fajar Alfiyan and Muhammad Riyan Ardianto, here on Friday.
In men’s singles, HS Prannoy beat Japan’s Kodai Naroka in the quarter-finals, while World Championship silver medalist Kidambi Srikanth, however, crashed out of the men’s singles competition after losing to China’s Li Shi Feng in the last eight.
Srikanth went down 14-21 21-14 12-21 to the world number 10 in a hard-fought match that lasted one hour and nine minutes. With this win, Feng avenged his previous loss to Srikanth. In two matches between the two players, both have registered one win each.
The seventh seeded pair of Satwik and Chirag did not have much trouble in defeating the Indonesian men’s doubles pair. The Indian pair won the match 21-13 21-13 in a 41-minute match. Satwik and Chirag will face the winner of the quarterfinal between Korea’s Min Hyuk Kang and Seung Jae Seo and Indonesia’s Leo Roli Karnando and Daniel Martin in the semi-finals. In the Indian players’ last match of the day, Prannoy defeated third seed Naroka 21-18 21-6.
In the semi-finals, Prannoy will face the winner of the last eight match between top seed Viktor Axelsen of Denmark and Tien Chen Chou of Chinese Taipei. In men’s singles, both Srikanth and Feng, ranked 22nd in the world, are unseeded in the event. Srikanth raced to a 2-0 lead in the opening set but thereafter made a string of unforced errors to pay the price.
The Chinese player took an 11-7 lead at the break in the first game. Feng continued to lead after that and took the first game easily. The start of the second game saw an equal contest between the two players but Srikanth soon found his old rhythm and took an 11-6 lead at the break.
They won the game by continuing to play aggressively. However, he could not maintain this momentum in the third game and Feng took an 11-6 lead. A Chinese player needed medical help during the break. He then took to the court with a splint on his left foot but his game did not suffer. Feng won the third game by a huge margin of 21-12 to book a place in the semi-finals.
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