Indian challenge ends at India Open as Satwik-Chirag bow out

For the entire 37-minute duration of their men's doubles semi-final, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty played like the contest rested on a knife's edge.

- Sandip Sikdar

NEW DELHI: When it was sharp, every drop and smash looked spectacular. But when it wasn't, the errors looked glaring with the points going to their Malaysian opponents.

Saturday was more about when the world No.9 pairing wasn't sharp enough as they exited the $950,000 India Open after losing 18-21, 14-21 to third seeds Nur Izzuddin and Goh Sze Fei to end India's campaign at the Super 750 event.

Even though the Indians had a 6-1 record coming into the contest, it had been almost three years since they last met at the 2022 Thomas Cup which Satwik and Chirag helped India win. Since then, Nur and Goh have evolved a lot, especially in the last year where they have been in blazing form, reaching five finals on the BWF World Tour, winning three, which has helped them reach a career-best ranking of world No. 2.

"We should have closed the first game but credit to them, they were quite good in the service situations which we didn't really expect because probably we didn't prepare for it. But having said that we should have been a little calmer," said Chirag.

"It was probably the service situation. We didn't really expect so many flicks going into the game. Possibly because we have not played them for almost three years now."

While Shetty was brilliant at the net which kept the seventh seeds ahead (8-5) at the start, Goh and Nur levelled the score at 10-all. Nur showed supreme awareness up front, keeping calm and not panicking, to elongate rallies, forcing the Indians to make errors.