Badminton
Thailand Open: Satwik-Chirag and Ashwini-Tanisha through to the semifinals
Olympic-bound doubles pairs Satwik and Chirag, and Ashwini and Tanisha, progressed to the semifinals of the Thailand Open
FILE PHOTO: Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy into their fourth final of the BWF World Tour in 2024.
The Indian doubles players continued their good run at the Thailand Open Super 500 tournament as both pairs, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty in men's doubles, and Ashwini Ponappa and Tanisha Crasto in women's doubles, progressed to the semifinals on Thursday in Bangkok, Thailand.
Satwik and Chirag had another easy match in the tournament against the world number 64 Malaysian duo of Junaidi Arif and Roy King Yap in the quarterfinals, clinching it in a straight-game affair (21-7, 21-14) that lasted just 38 minutes.
The Malaysian pair had no answer to the aggressive play of Satwik and Chirag, who dominated the whole match and secured the win by dropping just 21 points in total across the two games.
The top-seeded Indian pair will now face another lower-ranked pair from Chinese Taipei, Ming Che Lu and Tang Kai Wei, in the semifinals tomorrow. The Indian pair has a very good opportunity to add one more title to their cabinet and surge up in the rankings.
On the other hand, the women's doubles pairing of Ashwini Ponappa and Tanisha Crasto had a tough three-game (21-15, 21-23, 21-19) win in the quarterfinals against the sixth-seeded South Korean pair of Lee Yu Lim and Shin Seung Chan.
They lost a big opportunity to grab the match in straight games as in the second game they had a match point at 20-19, but Tanisha made a judgment error on the back court, sending the game into deuce and then later into a decider. The decider went down to the wire, but the Indians managed to cruise past the Koreans in the final moments.
The fourth-seeded Indian pair will face a tough task in the semifinals against the top-seeded Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Rawinda Prajongjai of Thailand. This will be the second meeting between the two pairs, with the last one favoring the hosts.
Meanwhile, Meiraba Luwang's impressive run in the tournament came to an end as he suffered a heavy defeat (12-21, 5-21) against the world champion and fourth-seeded home favorite, Kulavut Vitisdarn of Thailand.
