Indonesia Open: Satwik/Chirag defeat world champions, win first Super 1000 title

Satwik Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty scripted history as they became the first Indian badminton players to win a BWF Super 1000 title after defeating world champions Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik 21-17, 21-18 to win the Indonesia Open 2023 on Sunday.

This is the first-ever win for the Indian pair against the Malaysian duo after losing eight times in earlier meetings.

The finals started on a nervous note for the Indian pair as they were trailing 3-7 in early exchanges with Chirag making few serve errors. But slowly, the Indian pair started finding their rhythm and went into 11-9 at the mid-game break.

While the Indian pair was making occasional errors, the Malaysian duo looked more tentative giving away easy points. An attritional passage of play saw both pairs losing easy points but the Indian pair kept their lead intact at 19-16.

Chirag Shetty came alive in the last few points and the Indian pair won the first game 21-17 owing to a mistake by Aaron Chia in the last point.

The Indian pair carried the confidence of the first game and gave no chances to the Malaysian duo.

After 7-7 in the second game, the Indian pair raced to a lead of 11-7 at the mid-game break. Chirag Shetty changed his gears after the break and played some fast badminton to stun the Malaysian duo.

At 20-14, the Malaysian duo started making a little comeback aided by mistakes by the Indian pair. The Indian duo held their nerve and clinched the title following an error from Aaron Chia.

Talking about the win, Satwik said, "I think we prepared well for the match. We had a very bad head-to-head record and we wanted to play one point at a time."

This is the second world tour title for the Indian pair in 2023 as they won Swiss Open earlier in the year.