Satwik-Chirag stun World No.3, reach semi-finals of China Open

India's men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty reaches the semi-final of the China Open at Fuzhou today. The Indian duo, seeded ninth stunned China's third-seeded Li Jun Hui and Liu Yu Chen in straight games 21-19, 21-15.

The first game saw the Indians engaging in a neck-to-neck battle with their opponents. Despite leading 13-10, Satwik and Chirag gave away points to the Chinese who levelled up capitalising on the errors by the Indians. However, they maintained their composure and eventually won the game.

The second game saw Satwik and Chirag picking up the lead early on. Though the Chinese followed up quick but the points came in flowing for the Indians, who at the interval were leading 11-10. Post the interval, the lead further mounted to 17-13 with the Indian pair showing some nerves. The lead piled up to 19-14, with Indians dominating the long-drawn rallies. Eventually, they had the last laugh winning the proceedings with 5 match points.

In the pre-quarterfinal yesterday, the duo stunned sixth seed Hiroyuki Endo and Yuta Watanabe of Japan 21-18, 21-23, 21-11. The pulsating second-round contest lasted an hour.

However in the men's singles Indian challenge ended as both Parupalli Kashyap and B Sai Praneeth were ousted in the second round. World No. 11 Praneeth went down to fourth seed Anders Antonsen of Denmark. Kashyap, ranked 25 in the world, was defeated by Victor Axelsen.