Satwiksairaj Rankireddy pulled off a moment of mirth at the Super 750 China Masters. It deflated the opponents, wowed the rival coaches and sent spectators at Shenzhen Arena – all of them Chinese – into guffaws. And gave him and Chirag Shetty a 21-14, 21-14 victory against Chinese Xie Haonan and Ren Xiang Yu, to enter the Super 750 semifinals.
All the drama centred around the two front courts with furious, flat exchanges at the net when the score read 14-9 in favour of the Indians in the opener. The near 20-shot rally saw both Indians and the Chinese pounce on the shuttle within microseconds of it crossing the meshing. It’s when Satwik, with his racquet held straight in front of his face, suddenly took a stride across to his left, but deceptively sent the shuttle to his right. It flummoxed his opponents first, and the giggling crowd soon after. Ren stuck his racquet out awkwardly, but returned with no control on the shuttle, giving the point to Indians.
It was cheeky and suitably impressive for the partisan 12,000 crowd which applauded heartily for the Indians.
SatChi in action during their quarterfinals win at the Li-Ning China Masters 2025 . (Credit: Badminton Photo)
After Satwik-Chirag went up 7-0 in the opener against a freshly formed Chinese combination of Xie-Ren, playing only their fifth match together, the match could’ve ended a one-sided bore. But it never is when Satwik-Chirag take the court. Added to the mix was China’s new doubles punt, the aggressive left-handed Xie Haonan, who prances around noisily, smashes with gusto and has wicked left-handed angles that rustle up one right storm.
But the Indians were far from being fazed by him. One thing the Chinese were pretty poor at was lifting the shuttle onto the back court with horizontal racquets, so they parried plenty of shuttles out of bounds. But the whole match was about flat, fast exchanges and body attacks, yanked out of ribcages at speed.
Slowly but surely, the Indians are in the mix amongst those top men’s doubles pairs that revel in fast parallel contests. And Satwik, gaining in confidence, attacked the Chinese serve at the net, and sent stinging returns like a proper front court pro. His settling down in that role — though the two played side-by-side than front and back on Friday — makes the Indians fearless in a style they were uncomfortable with once, adding to them being fearsome in attack.
They took off to wrap up the two sets at the 15-point mark, despite the southpaw Haonan leaving an ominous impression for the future.
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There’s familiar foes Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik next in semifinals, looking no doubt to avenge the World Championship loss with their nifty serves. But there’s no shirking from the fight now, as the Indians make back-to-back semifinals.
The leftie-rightie combinations have stopped boggling the Indians, Satwik noted, when asked if he’d had enough of them. “If we play finals, maybe Koreans (Seo-Kim leftie-rightie) will come. But no more,” he laughed. “We love it now. But we used to hate it because we never had anyone (leftie) in India. It used to be trouble if we suddenly played with (Danish southpaw) Kim Astrup or something in first round. But we have played a lot more (against such pairs). So we will just focus on ourselves,” he added.
Are they ‘back’? Like, ‘back’ is meant to be. Not really, the hard losses have tempered their giddy optimism, though they remain realistic and reasonable about a good future. Chirag wasn’t willing to announce they were ‘back.’ “If we keep playing finals then maybe yes, we can say we feel stable,” he told BWF. “It’s been a lot of semifinals. But finally a final last week! So hopefully we do better this week. But definitely not there yet.”
