The good run of the Indian men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddey and Chirag Shetty came to an end when they lost to Indonesian pair of Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo 16-21, 20-22 in the semifinal of the ongoing Fuzhou China Open on Saturday.
After going down in the first game, the Indian shuttlers gave a fighting reply to the dominance of their world number one opponent. But the Indonesian duo proved too hot to be handled by the young Indians and clinched the hard-fought second game to enter the final.
The world number 16 Indian pair had earlier defeated the world number three Chinese duo of Li Jun Hui and Liu Yu Chen 21-19, 21-15 in their quarterfinal match at the Haixia Olympic Sports Center.
Rankireddy and Shetty were the lone medal hope after almost everyone from the star-studded Indian contingent bowed out in the opening rounds of this BWF Super Series tournament.
PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal both were knocked out in their respective first-round matches. While Sindhu lost a close-fought contest of 74 minutes against Pai Yu Po of Taiwan 13-21, 21-18, 19-21, Nehwal succumbed to an easy defeat of 14-21, 14-21 to China’s Cai Yan Yan.
On the men’s front, Parupalli Kashyap walked the exit door in the second round after facing defeat of 13-21, 19-21 against Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen. Following the first-round exit from French Open last month, this was his second early exit from a BWF tournament in 2019.
The mixed doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Reddy and Ashwini Ponappa were also shown the return door in the second round when they lost 21-23, 16-21 to South Korean duo of Seo Seung Jae and Chae Yu Jung.