It’s been a surfeit of left-right combinations for Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty to face, since last Tuesday at Hong Kong.
It can be disorienting playing those two side angles. But just like that, while getting on with their everyday assignments, the Indian duo have grown to be comfortable against that deceptive pattern, that used to once bother them mightily.
After beating their fifth ‘leftie-rightie’ combo in six matches when they ousted one half of reigning Olympic champion Wang Chi Lin in a new partnership with Chiu Hsiang Chieh 21-13, 21-12, Satwik-Chirag are preparing to take on their sixth L-R (left-right) opponents. This is Chinese Ren Xiang Yu and Xie Haonan. The Indians beat Ren and his partner in an earlier iteration, and have slightly more painful memories of Xie Haonan, the 5’11 footer.
Playing at the All England in Round 2 against Haonan and his then partner this year, the Indians had to cede the match after Chirag aggravated his back and was out for a few months in pain, agony and stoic rehab. Satwik, who had returned to the game after a painful bereavement, went through with the incomplete match, but a whole tide has turned since with their Worlds medal. In their only other meeting with Haonan, the Indians had won. Now the Chinese have glued the two together, and they remain the only Chinese pairing in men’s doubles at the home event.
It will be a raucous atmosphere at Shenzhen, a venue where Indians have a prior runners-up and semifinal finish. Ren-Xie beat Astrup-Rasmussen in three, but are crucially the new Chinese mix ‘n match experiment.
Satwik was amused at their luck of running into yet another ‘rightie-leftie’. “I was thinking to myself. In Hong Kong, we played first round leftie rightie, second left right, quarters left right, semis also leftie right, today & tomorrow also leftie rightie! We’ve not played these many leftie righties in a short span,” he told BWF.
He’s excited about the quarterfinals matchup though. “But Chinese – they come up with good josh (enthusiasm) and the (home) crowd will be there. But we love playing against Chinese. We have that rivalry, I think. But hoping for a good match tomorrow. We will give 100 pc tomorrow,” he added.
The Shenzhen Arena has some unfinished business. “Shenzhen is special for us. We want to make it more special. We came runners up. There’s a semifinal also. Hopefully this time we can finish well….but not as runner up,” Satwik added.
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SatChi in action during their Round of 16 win at the Li-Ning China Masters 2025. (Credit: Badminton Photo)
One thing the Indians would want to correct from Hong Kong where they lost the finals to Liang Weikeng – Wang Chang, is in gifting points in a bunch. “It was all about confidence. At Hong Kong after coming from World Championships, first round is always tough. Yesterday, we can see it was close in first set. If we had lost first game it would have gone to three. But after yesterday we got pretty comfortable on how to manage situation. At Hong Kong we made easy mistakes. It was easy game in second, but neck to neck we gave easy points. So it went to third. Today we focussed just on first four strokes. And service – receiving, service – receiving. Then we’ll see if they can come up with rally or something,” Satwik explained.
Their opponents are interesting for another reason. Xie Haonan, the six footer left handed, became unintentionally famous in China after videos of his ‘Watermelon Challenge’. It’s a wildly popular trend in China and Tik Tok, where shuttlers with big smashes attack a stationary watermelon sitting on a chair and try to crack it open, like with a karate chop, but using the Belgian corks to dent the outer shell.
Lin Dan is supposed to have smashed one open once, but Haonan is reasonably famous. In front of him will be two Indians who aren’t too shabby at smashing either.
Chirag told BWF, “We are slowly and steadily we are going where we want to. It’s been a while, but slowly we are getting there.”
