Satwiksiraj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty’s quest for a second India Open title, this time in front of home fans unlike the Covid-affected 2022 tournament, will run into a difficult Danish challenge in the quarterfinals on Friday.
The second seeds play fifth seeds Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen, against whom they have a 6-2 record. Their last meeting was the World Championships in August, where they lost in the quarterfinals, narrowly missing out on a medal.
Yet, if the Indian pair’s track record is anything to go by, sporting revenge is one of their favourite dishes to serve.
In the second round on Thursday, Satwik and Chirag beat Lu Ching Yao and Yang Po Han 21-14, 21-15 – the Chinese Taipei pair had beaten them in the first round of the Japan Masters last November where they were the top seeds.
And, refreshingly, they didn’t try to mask that payback was on their mind.
“It was a good win, we lost to them in the first round the last time and we wanted to take revenge. We were charged up and didn’t want to give them any opportunity, we had our gears on from the start and the tactics worked for us,” Chirag said after the win.
Gears from the start is about right, as the second seeds breezed through the encounter, a contrast to the first round where they needed three games. They took time to adjust after reaching the final of the Malaysia Open Super 1000 on Sunday but today they were back to their attacking best.
Tomorrow’s opponents the Danes, who went on to win silver at the Worlds, had a tough match. They were 2 points away from a loss before they put on ‘Nitro boost‘ from The Fast and the Furious to beat China’s Chen Bo Yang and Liu Yi 21-13, 20-22, 11-21 in a morale-boosting win. “To have a 16-1 lead against a Chinese pair is a big confidence-booster,” Rasmussen said in the mixed zone, still pumped after the fightback win and animatedly analysing it with his partner in loud Danish all the way to mixed zone.
They joked about the translation and the film franchise but the intent was clear – they will channel Dom Toretto against Satwik and Chirag on Friday.
Astrup, asked what gives them an advantage over the pair he called ‘world class’, said it was the clash of styles. “We are good in the tactical aspect of the game and maybe we are not as hard-hitting as they are but we are smart and good in the service situation,” he said.
One weakness of the Indian pair they’d look to exploit would be the strange habit of conceding big leads in the second game. It happened in all five matches in Malaysia and the first in India, and while they fought back in all but one of those matches, the one where they didn’t was the Super 1000 final.
“It’s become a habit for us now… Today I thought let’s not think so much about it and play one by one and then we can see in the third game,” Satwik said with a laugh. “I had my tactics, wanted to break their rhythm and take time and that worked in the second game. It’s like if we are off for a few seconds then we are giving 4-5 points quickly. But the good part is that we are bringing it back again.”
The key to the quarterfinal could be this second-game slip up. Satwik said they are working on that lapse in focus and reducing the streak of points they conceded, but, given the slower conditions in New Delhi, they will have a challenge on their hands.
Chirag knows it and expects a cracker on Friday. “It’s always a good matchup against them, it will be a high intensity and a very good match. We will go all guns blazing and hope to play our best badminton.”
The word revenge was used once already after the second match and Indian badminton fans will hope it will be used again.
