It turned out to be a case of so near yet so far, as luck deserted Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty at crucial moments and they went down fighting against Korea’s Kang Min Hyuk and Seo Seung Jae, the reigning world champions, in the India Open Doubles final on Sunday.

Rankireddy and Shetty, second in the world badminton ranking, lost to the world No. 3 Korean pair by a 21-15, 11-21, 18-21 in one hour and five minutes.

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This was Indian pair’s second straight appearance in the final of the 2024 badminton season. They reached the final of the Malaysia Open – a BWF Super 1000 tournament – last week but lost to world No. 1 pair of Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang.

On Sunday, Chirag-Satwik, the 2022 India Open champions, relied on counter-attacks in the first game and went into the break with an 11-9 lead. Riding on quick and flat returns, the Indians increased the lead to six points at 19-13 and closed the opening game in 18 minutes.

The Korean staged a good come back as they used the back court well in the second game and forced some errors out of the Indians , who found themselves six points behind in the mid-game interval at 11-5.

The Koreans quickly increased their lead after the break to make it 18-8. Chirag-Satwik who pulled off a stunning comeback in the Malaysia Open semi-finals last week after saving six game points against the same opponents, could not produce the same goods as the match stretched into the decider.

The Koreans dictated the pace of the third game before the break, leading 11-6. The Indians dug themselves out of the hole after the change of ends in the decider and won four points on the bounce to reduce the deficit.

Kang Min Hyuk and Seo Seung Jae held their nerves to make it 19-16 and showed exceptional game awareness to seal only their second win against the Asian Games champions from India in six meetings.

“We were not good at speed in the beginning but later we worked on our actions and attacking portions, which eventually led to our win. We did not get nervous with the cheering crowd ,as we have already played in similar situations before and we have had enough experience playing in similar environment. The opponent had good skills in the attacking portions as well,so we played 1 point at a time and made sure that we don’t get nervous about it,” the Koreans said after the win.

India Open, the second tournament of the 2024 badminton season, offered qualifying ranking points to shuttlers for the Paris 2024 Olympics. The qualification window for badminton started on May 1 last year and will end on April 28 this year.