Satwik-Chirag last Indians standing

There was an unusual lull at the KD Jadhav Indoor Stadium here on Friday. With crowd favourite PV Sindhu and Kiran George getting knocked out in the quarter-finals, fans were feeling a little disappointed at the $950,000 India Open. But all hope wasn't lost.

- Sandip Sikdar

NEW DELHI:

As is the case in most badminton events these days, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty continued India's run into the business end of the Super 750 tournament. Rankireddy and Shetty barely broke a sweat to oust South Korean combine, Jin Yong and Kang Min Hyuk (who had won India Open last year with Seo Seung-Jae), 21-10, 21-17 in 41 minutes to advance to the men's doubles semi-finals.

"Right from the get-go, we were all guns blazing. That's what we wanted to do. As you could see in the end, if we were a bit slow, they could capitalise by maneuvering the shuttle around. We wanted to prevent them from getting back into the game. I'm happy we stuck to the plan until the end," said Shetty.