All England Badminton Championships: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty exit men’s doubles pre-quarter-finals

The world’s No. 1 Indian duo, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, lost to Muhammad Shohibul Fikri and Bagas Maulana of Indonesia.

Birmingham: World No. 1 Indian duo Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty bowed out in the pre-quarter-finals of the men’s doubles of the All England Badminton Championships after a straight defeat to Muhammad Shohibul Fikri and Bagas Maulana of Indonesia. Satwik and Chirag lost 16-21 and 15-21 on Thursday evening to the Indonesians, who were champions here in 2022.

The top-seeded Indian shuttlers, who had won the French Open last week, could not keep up the pressure on their rivals, the third seeds, and went down in just over an hour. “There was definitely fatigue, we couldn’t put pressure on them, they played a really good game and had a lot of net chords. They defended well, so kudos to them,” Chirag said after the match.

“You can’t play finals every week, but we tried to push them as much as possible. But playing back-to-back tournaments does take a toll on the body, but it doesn’t take away from anything.” It was their first early exit since November last year, when they lost in the opening round of the Japan Masters. Since then, the Indian duo played four finals before finally winning the title in Paris.

The Indian duo had beaten the Indonesian world number 9 four times before this match, but Satwik said their opponents made few wrong choices in their shots on Thursday, fulfilling their hopes. “They had nothing to lose, we made too many wrong choices, we couldn’t keep it simple, we had a lot of chances, I felt they enjoyed it. We couldn’t overtake them, they also played some fantastic shots, which I didn’t expect,” he said.

The Indian duo will next look to defend their title at the Asian Championships from April 9 to 14. Tanisha Crasto and Ashwini Ponnappa also exited the round of 16 in the women’s doubles after losing 21-11, 11-21, 11-21 to China’s Zhang Shu Xian and Zheng Yu on Thursday.

In the men’s singles, 2022 runner-up Lakshya Sen will face Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia, 2021 champion here, in the quarter-finals later in the day. Earlier, Sen had a stunning three-match win over 3rd seed Anders Antonsen world, booked to advance to the quarter-finals. Sen won 24-22, 11-21, 21-14. However, it was the end for two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu as she slumped to a 19-21, 11-21 loss to her nemesis and world number 1, An Se Young of South Korea.