China Masters 2024: Satwik-Chirag advance to semifinals, Lakshya exits

The Indian men's doubles pairing of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty continued their brilliant run at the China Masters in Shenzhen, China, which incidentally marks their return to the BWF Circuit.

They progressed to the semifinal of this BWF World Tour Super 750 tournament after a straight-game (21-16, 21-19) win against the second-seeded Danish pair of Kim Astrup and Anders Rasmussen on Friday.

Convincing start

The Danish pair lacked a bit of communication in the end, which resulted in a few unforced errors and misjudgments from their side when countering the defensive block shots of the Indian pair.

Satwik-Chirag started the opening game with an early lead, thanks mainly to some promising net play from Chirag.

They maintained this lead throughout the game and clinched it convincingly, 21-16.

The second game was much of a topsy-turvy affair with neither of the pair gaining any big advantage and keeping the margin within two points, which was later converted by the Indians using their aggressive play.

This was the fourth victory for the Indian pair in their 10th meeting today against the Danes on the BWF Circuit.

In the semi-final, they will take on the unseeded South Korean pairing of Jin Yong and Seo Seung Jae tomorrow.

Interestingly, this progression earns them a back-to-back appearance in the final of the China Masters.

Lakshya exits in the quarterfinal

Meanwhile, Lakshya Sen exited in the quarterfinal after a straight games (18-21, 15-21) loss to another Danish player Anders Antonsen in what was a 53-minute affair.

Lakshya had a promising start to the game but lost momentum in the middle phase as Antonsen showed his brilliant defensive game, returning most of the aggressive shots from Sen.

The young Indian could not recover from that and conceded the second game after making plenty of unforced errors at the net.