The Indian men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty has entered the men’s doubles final of the Korea Open 2023 Super 500 badminton tournament at the Jinnam Stadium in Yeosu on Saturday. The Indian challenge at the Korea Open 2023 hinges solely on these two players. Satwik-Chirag have already won the Swiss and Indonesia Open titles on the 2023 BWF World Tour.
The Indian pair won the match 21-15, 24-22 by defeating Republic of China’s Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang to enter their third final of the year. This was satwik-Chirag’s first-ever win over the Chinese duo in three meetings. Liang-Wang got the better of the Indians at the All England Open and Malaysia Open earlier this year.
The Indian pair will next face the winners of the other semi-final clash between Indonesian top seeds Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto and the Republic of Korea’s Kang Min Hyuk and Seo Seung Jae in the Korea Open 2023 final on Sunday.
Indian badminton star HS Prannoy however crashed out of the Korea Open 2023 tournament. He lost his second round match to Hong Kong’s Lee Cheuk Yiu on Thursday. Seeded fifth in the tournament, world No. 10 Prannoy went down 15-21, 21-19, 18-21 to an opponent ranked eight places lower than him in a hard-fought match that lasted one hour and six minutes. While Two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu also lost in the opening round. The Indian went down to Chinese Taipei’s Pai Yu Po on Wednesday.
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After a neck-to-neck start to the match, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, the world No. 3 and third seeds at the BWF Super 500 tournament, gained the upper hand in the first game after winning five back-to-back points to make the score 14-8 from 9-8.
The Indian badminton players rode the momentum to close out the opening game with ease. But they came up against much sterner resistance in the second game. Trailing 14-9 at one stage, Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang levelled the scores at 19-all. But the Indians managed to raise their game at the vital juncture to finish off the contest in 40 minutes.
Results at the Korea Open 2023 count towards players’ qualifying rankings for the Paris 2024 Olympics. The qualification window for badminton started on May 1 this year.
