Kuala Lumpur [Malaysia]: Asian Games champion men's doubles duo Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty reached the quarterfinals of the ongoing Malaysia Open badminton tournament in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday. 'SatChi' as they are known to the fans, beat the world number 36 pair of Lucas Corvee and Ronan Labar 21-11, 21-18 in their round of 16 match, as per Olympics.com.
The world number two pair dominated the first game and took a 10-1 lead by getting nine successive points. Though their opponents narrowed the lead to 14-11, the Indians were too good, winning the remaining seven points without conceding anything. In the second game, the French pair showed a lot of intent and led by 11-6. But the Indian duo found their groove back really quick to win the match in just 39 minutes.
In the women's doubles competition as well, the in-form pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto, ranked world number 24, beat Japan's ninth-ranked pair of Wakana Nagahara and Mayu Matsumoto by 21-19, 13-21, 21-15. The Japanese pair are former two-time World Champions and former world number one as well.
However, the Indian men's singles campaign began with Kidambi Srikanth going down to world No. 20 Angus Ng Ka Long of Chinese Taipei by 21-13, 21-17. HS Prannoy and Lakshya Sen were eliminated in the first round of men's singles on Wednesday. The results of the tournament, the first Badminton World Federation (BWF) Super 1000 event of 2024 season, will count towards players' qualifying rankings for the Paris 2024 Olympics.
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