French Open Badminton 2019: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty Beat Fifth-Seed Japanese Pair of Hiroyuki Endo-Yuta Watanabe to Enter Final of BWF Super 750 Tournament

India’s top men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty continued their golden run in the ongoing BWF French Open tournament with another thrilling victory on Saturday. The star Indian shuttlers defeated Japanese pair Hiroyuki Endo-Yuta Watanabe in straight games 21-11, 25-23 to book a place in the final of the BWF Super 750 tournament. This was Rankireddy-Shetty’s first win over the fifth-seed Japanese duo in three overall meetings so far. Courtesy this win, the Indian pair is through to their second BWF tournament final and continue to climb up the ladder on the world stage.

Satwik and Chirag played dominating badminton right from the word go in the epic semifinal clash. The Indian duo gave ample proof of their diverse skillset, talent and guile to the capacity crowd present at the Stade Pierre de Coubertin arena. After squandering four match point opportunities, Satwik and Shetty converted their fifth to register another memorable win in the tournament.

In the quarterfinals, Rankireddy and Shetty registered a dominating 21-13, 22-20 win over the Danish pair of Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen in 39 minutes. They followed it up with an upset against the world champions on Thursday,

Satwik and Chirag put up an extremely intelligent display that was a mix of deft touch and smart powerplay. The Indians got off to a solid start, racing to a 5-2 lead and despite an attempt of a fightback from the Japanese, they went into the break with an 11-6 lead.

With the two Indians’ attacking game firing, they completely ruled out any sort of comeback from the Japanese pair. Both Satwik and Chirag showed great ability at the net and from the back of the court as they mixed powerful smashes with great interceptions at the net to sneak away. Without much trouble, they took the first game 21-11.

Satwik and Chirag had claimed their maiden Super 500 title at the Thailand Open in August this year.