India’s Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, right, and Chirag Shetty. file. , Photo Credit: AP
India’s top men’s doubles pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty on Friday assured themselves of a men’s doubles medal at the Badminton Asia Championships after defeating experienced Indonesian pair of Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan in the quarterfinals in Dubai.
The Indian pair won 21-11 21-12. Rankireddy and Shetty will now take on Chinese Taipei’s Li Yang and Wang Chi-lin in the last four. Earlier, two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu squandered a one-game lead to lose to second seed An Se Young of Korea In the women’s singles quarterfinals.
Eighth seed Sindhu won the first game 21-18 but was out of form in the next two games, going down 5-21 9-21 to send Young into the semi-finals.
Eight seed HS Prannoy, another Indian hope, also bowed out in the men’s singles quarterfinals after leaving his match against Japan’s Kanta Tsuneyama midway.
Prannoy was trailing 11-21 9-13 when he retired due to injury.
Earlier in the day, qualifiers Rohan Kapoor and N Sikki Reddy fought hard to lose a tough three-game mixed doubles tie against Indonesia’s Dejan Ferdinsyah and Gloria Emanuel Widjaja.
The Indian pair lasted one hour and five minutes and lost 18-21 21-19 15-21 in the quarterfinals.