French Open badminton: Chirag-Satwik beat world champions to enter final
The Indians reached the final of their season-opening Malaysia Open but lost to the then-world No. 1 Chinese pair of Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang.
The Indians reached the final of their season-opening Malaysia Open but lost to the then-world No. 1 Chinese pair of Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang.
They lost to the world No. 1 Chinese pair of Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang 21-9, 18-21, 17-21 in the double's final in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday.
Five badminton players have been conferred the Khel Ratna so far; Pullela Gopichand (2001), Saina Nehwal (2010), PV Sindhu (2016), Pramod Bhagat (2021) and Krishna Nagar (2021).
The Asian Games champions outpaced world No. 15 Ting, 18th ranked Yu 21-15, 22-20 in the semi-finals of the BWF Super 750 event.
Popularly known as “Sat-Chi”, Satwik and Chirag climbed two spots in the BWF rankings after a historic gold medal in the recently concluded Asian Games badminton men’s doubles event in Hangzhou.
The star Indian men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have been nominated for the 'Most Improved Player of the Year' Award by the Badminton World Federation (BWF).
Rankireddy and Shetty were the lone medal hope after almost everyone from the Indian contingent bowed out in the opening rounds of Fuzhou China Open.
Satwik and Chirag, who had won their maiden Super 500 title at the Thailand Open in August before reaching the French Open final last month, are the lone Indians left in the tournament.
This is the second straight win for the Indian duo over Endo-Watanabe after they had defeated the pair in French Open last month.
The Indian contingent have fared quite badly in the ongoing Fuzhou China Open and with Thursday's string of defeats the medal hope seems well and over.
