Having faced, survived and gulped down their biggest nemesis – the opponent’s treacherous serve, always laced with wicked twirls – Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty roused themselves to win a fighting pre-quarterfinal against Chinese Liang Weikeng-Wang Chang to round off a gleeful day for Indian badminton in Paris at the World Championships.
The 19-21, 21-15, 21-17 match in 66 testy minutes wasn’t won on latent power or talent or confidence. The Indian duo clawed back the rock-face, dodged landslide debris of Chinese momentum, suffered Liang’s usual whimsy wizardry, to eke out a win while not dictating the tone or tenor of the match. Like bouldering pros, the Indians used all the jagged angles of their shots and tiniest of crevices in the Chinese defense to record a win – on a run of six straight points – that will go some way in healing the hurt of the Olympics at the same Venue last year.
Having traded the first two sets, the decider was on a knife-edge. From 3-6 down, the Indians had worked up a momentum to lead 11-10 from the rougher side of the court. But because men’s doubles follows no neat pattern, lends itself ill to metres of poetry and goes on a merry staccato ride of its own, Satwik-Chirag lapsed to 12-15, staring at yet another heartbreak. Except when the dark wilderness stared at them, they glared back.
Satwik might still be settling into net duties, and that flick serve and general high serve can lead to routine cardiac arrests, but you could trust your life with his high lift – that it will fall within bounds, and will scatter opponents. He had that pat. Working on a diagonal axis, conjuring angles to open up the court gently, the Indians used a slapping, flicking tango to unsettle Wang from his net citadel.
It’s how they arrived at 14-15 in the third, playing catch-up. Satwik landed one right on the back line, and then Chirag used the depth of the lob to float it over the two Chinese baring grinny fangs at the net. Then, with the score 16-17, Chirag put in a Lakshya Sensque dive to his right and catapulted back to level the scores, finding another gap.
Satwik-Chirag caught their breath, composed themselves, and made good the match point, without a blink, a bother, or going bust. (Photo: BWF/BadmintonPhoto)
Those two points deflated the Chinese, even Liang, who barely ever crumbles. The Indian defense sowed doubts in Chinese heads and Liang who had pulled out one strand of his shoulder tape as if to smash with gusto, was forced into aiming for the lines. Indians went up 19-17 when they absorbed the serve pressure, and Liang sailed long.
The randomness never ends in men’s doubles, so the music started blaring suddenly, Satwik pulled out of the serve and the Chinese ran to sip water. Terrible idea. The Indians caught their breath, composed themselves, and made good the match point, without a blink, a bother, or going bust.
Story continues below this ad
It was India’s second massive win against the Chinese, after Sindhu dumped out World No 2 Wang Zhi Yi earlier. And Satwik-Chirag were bolstered with confidence, having come through a proper wringer.
It’s tough to say if the service demons (facing the serves) crop up uninvited like a sudden stab of grief, or if Satwik-Chirag have chronic technical issues against them. But the first set the Indians lost was littered with situations where Liang-Wang kept toying with the Indian response. Most pairings tend to slip them in as taunts and a legitimate snatched point off them. So the Chinese, keeping the rallies to at one point to 7.7 shots per exchange, won the first set, harping on all manners of opening fire through those wretched serves. Chirag’s swivel serve isn’t sniveling enough, and service returns bring lumps to the throat. But the Indians are slowly learning to not let them trigger further chaos in the rally.
So as soon as the second set started, Satwik-Chirag had snapped out of that quicksand and played their own game, not fixating on the Chinese tricks. Liang-Wang themselves have been sloppy on the Tour, and not quite recovered from winning ‘only silver’ at the Olympics. But on this day, they were simply outwitted by the Indians, who refused to buckle under the torment of the serve.
