The stage. 2025 BWF World Championships, the biggest badminton event of any non-Olympic year. The protagonists. Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty, India, and Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik, Malaysia. The context. At this very venue – the Adidas Arena in Paris 2024 – Satwik and Chirag’s dream of winning an Olympic medal, indeed the golden kind, was ended by Chia and Soh. The stakes. India’s hopes of extending a streak of at least one medal at the Worlds since 2011 are now dependent solely on these two young men.
The result. Satwik-Chirag produced a near-flawless performance, minus a nervy finish, to win in straight games. 21-12, 21-19 in 43 minutes and book their place in the semifinals and keep alive their hopes of a World Championships gold.
The Indians face their second Chinese pair, Chen Bo Yang and Liu Yi, in the semifinals. The Chinese are ranked No 11, as against India’s No 9, and had lost their only previous meeting, 21-15, 21-15 in Thailand in 2024.
Being daring
Over the past 14 meetings they have had, Chia and Soh have been the architects of many an Indian heartbreak. Most notably, they – as eventual history-makers for Malaysia that year – had ended Satwik-Chirag’s run at the 2022 edition of the World Championships in Tokyo at the semifinal stage. Most recently, they came back from a game down last year at the Olympics in Paris last year, also at the quarterfinals stage. Their Head-to-Head record against Satwik-Chirag, coming into the match on Friday in Paris, reads 11-3.
But Satwik-Chirag put all that aside, focused on the job at hand on the night, in what was an all-round effort based primarily on a word that coach Sumeeth Reddy kept repeating from the coaching bench during the match: “Daring”
Often, why Satwik-Chirag have struggled against the Malaysians in the past, is because they tended to get sucked into the vortex that Chia and Soh can create. The 2022 World Champions have a ferocious flat game, can repel most attacks with their resolute defence, and if the opponents play to their rackets, they invariably tend to punish them. The few times that Satwik-Chirag have managed to overcome them – most memorably at the Indonesia Open final when they broke the streak of 8 straight defeats against Chiah-Soh – they were riding on coach Mathias Boe’s tactical advice to keep the shuttle as far away from the Malaysians’ hitting zones as possible. It’s easier said than done, as Chia-Soh had shown in the past three meetings.
What really worked for Satwik and Chirag on Friday, however, was that they were able to beat Chia and Soh at their own game. That is where the ‘daring’ that Sumeeth kept mentioning came into play. SatChi have often struggled against the flat game of Malaysian pairs, not just Chia-Soh. At the India Open this year, they explained that, being both tall players, the flat drives and furious exchanges that Malaysians tended to employ did make their lives hard. But from the get-go, both Satwik and Chirag were up for that particular battle.
Recap of Satwik-Chirag’s quarterfinal win here.
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A 59-shot rally is a rarity in men’s doubles, and it came early in the piece at 3-2 in Game 1. The Malaysians were on defence early on, and then it was the Indians’ turn to tease them with high lifts, before Chirag hit a superb smash from the midcourt. It was an early statement. From there on, Satwik-Chirag took complete control of proceedings, defending stoutly when they had to but also not allowing the World No 2 pair to impose their signature relentlessness in attack.
Another standout aspect throughout the match was how well Satwik and Chirag rotated between the front and backcourt. Chirag’s ability to hit the big smashes from the baseline is not far off from Satwik’s, but the latter can sometimes be caught off guard in the frontcourt more than Chirag does. But a sensational crosslift from Satwik, taking the shuttle from literally the top of the tape, gave the Indians an 11-5 lead in the opener. From ther,e it was largely a cruise.
Early in Game 2, Satwik and Chirag were once again imposing themselves with the flat game that their power on the drives was proving too much to handle for Soh, as the shuttle kept going long. And of course, Plan A was working too, when it mattered: all-out smashing. After the point for 10-5, commentator Gill Clark remarked: “It’s just blistering attack, isn’t it?” At 15-10, there was a similar refrain as she said: “It’s devastating isn’t it?” Both questions were met with an affirmative response from her co-commentator, former Denmark head coach Steen Pedersen, who incidentally had no problems apologising on air in the previous match after underestimating Satwik-Chirag’s defensive skills.
When the Malaysians won a sensational 41-shot rally to make it 13-17, a few nerves started to creep in for Satwik-Chirag. Sumeeth kept yelling timely reminders to be ‘daring’, but Chia and Soh found their rhythm and went from 11-17 to 19-19. Surely, the Indians must have had flashbacks to 2024 when they squandered an early lead to go down in three games?
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But nerves were held. The match point rally was fitting in many ways because it was Satwik with a quick drive serve and then a couple of interventions from the frontcourt, then Chirag with a couple of big smashes from the baseline, which sealed the deal.
The pictures at the end of the match spoke a thousand words as both Chirag and Satwik let it all out. They came through two pairs that have caused them the most difficulties in recent times to make sure they found love in Paris again. This won’t necessarily count as redemption. That is too heavy a word for what they lost at the Olympics. They were one of the favourites. They were in their favourite city. But they faltered.
But this was vindication. A validation for their efforts. A reward for sticking with each other when the going got tough. A timely reminder that these two are the finest India have produced. And mind you, the job isn’t complete yet.
