It’s in that understanding silence after a clumsy clash of racquets down the middle, with the lead whittled to 20-19. Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty were flying so high from 2021-2023 that a mistake like that was unthinkable. It’s in Chirag learning to linger back and letting Satwik negotiate the front court interceptions, even if he isn’t nailing those. Or Satwik gesturing to let it go, knowing Chirag will mull and beat himself up over his service dipping into the net. The SatChi magic is biding its time to explode, the SatChi friendship, though, is filling the cracks like Kintsugi gold and making their bond indestructible.
For a pair of fairly happy athletes riding the sunny waves – Satwik was happy-go-lucky even – the last year has been nothing short of a nightmare. Grief, on-court disappointments, injuries, and even going out of the Top 10. It’s why they are on Mission: Finding Sat-Chi now, rather than fixating on medals.
Starting off at the Paris World Championship against the yuppie Taiwanese pairing of Liu Kuang Heng – Yang Po Ha – speedy, restless and with a sleeve of tattoos – Satwik-Chirag gulped down a few scares, and then cruised to make the Round of 16 with a 22-20, 21-13 win.
A major change implemented for a few months now by coaches Tan Kim Her and Sumeeth Reddy, is that Satwik is encouraged to play front court; be in the eye of the speed storm that Asian pairings unleash with their parallel games. Liu-Yang were additionally a left-right combination, and quite upbeat about their chances to slash at the big-hitting giants.
While Chirag can comfortably hit big from the back court – he is in possession of the second hardest smash in the world – Satwik has to completely inhabit that front court matrix that demands agility, quick footwork, interceptions and sharpness on shots at the net. He is far too good, skilled, and hard-working not to get great at it. But for rotations to click in organically, he has to get comfortable. He can kill pace on lobbed lifts, but the short-smash with the wrist at the net, makes excruciating demands of timing.
So, even when they broke from 8-8 to lead 18-14, the opponents fancied sneaking in a few points. The Indians had reached 20-16 with vintage rotating 1-2 smash, where both rise and smack it down in turns. It was almost perfect. But Satwik-Chirag know how the most perfect situations can morph into disasters in the blink of an eye. Here, the Taiwanese roared back to 20-20.
It’s when Chirag had had enough. He blew them apart with the final point of that set. There was not a semblance of resistance in the second from their opponents.
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So, are they looking like on their way to a comeback fairytale? Not so fast. There’s Liang Weikeng-Wang Chang of China next.
Satwik will make for the goofiest philosophers, but he always finds the best direct words. “No goal. One match at a time. Not thinking too far ahead,” he told BWF after the win. “Just give our best. We want to find the SatChi back. Doesn’t matter if we win or lose. But we want that A game. It’s been a while since we played that A Game, so once we are there, maybe we can do something here. But we are not hoping… just give our best to get that Chirag and Satwik back and see where it goes.”
Once we are there, maybe we can do something here: that is Dory’s equivalent of “Just keep swimming” in Finding Nemo.
The opening set ib Paris, a city that can appear like a stranger even if they’ve won twice there, and love it to bits – for the Olympic loss was scalding – was sobering. “It’s always tricky playing the first game, first set. You don’t know what’s coming, how courts are. You have to hold your nerve when leading. It’s happened quite a lot of times that first game is tough, next game we got comfortable,” Satwik said.
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Liang-Wang are tough opponents. But they have their own goofy moments and clumsy spirals, and the Weikeng smash is as mellowed as Satwik’s with shoulder troubles. A month back at a fashion show in China, Weikeng walked on the ramp, turned around and forgot to pose for a final time, and disappeared into the wings, leaving Wang perplexed. That was comical, but doubles pairings in badminton all go through moments of utter bewilderment at what the partner is up to.
Sometimes, ‘Finding SatChi A game’ is a good enough goal. Medals can be quite the mirage.
