Star badminton duo Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty became the first Indian pair to enter the Asian Games men’s doubles final on Friday. They defeated Olympic champions Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik of Malaysia in the semifinals with scores of 21-17, 21-12 in Hangzhou, China.
The Malaysian duo posed a challenge in the first set which lasted for 24 minutes. In the second set, they found it hard to match the intensity of the Indian duo as they clinched a comfortable 21-12 victory in 23 minutes. The World No. 3 Indian duo will face Choi Soi Gyu/Kim Won Ho of Korea in the final on Saturday.
Earlier in the day, ace shuttler HS Prannoy suffered a defeat against China’s Li Shifeng 0-2 (16-21, 9-21) in the badminton men’s singles semifinal and settled for a bronze medal. After going into the first game break trailing 10-11, Shifeng rolled through the match as he won 21-16, 21-9 in just over 45 minutes. Prannoy started well in the first game as he took an 11-10 lead against the Chinese.
However, it did not take long for Shifeng to seal it as he raced around the court, not giving Prannoy any space to find winners. Prannoy overcooked two smashes back-to-back to fall behind by a point early in the second game. Even two net chords were not fruitful in turning Prannoy’s luck in the match as Shifeng found a delicate at the top of the net to finish off another long rally.
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The Indian was more aggressive in the following rally but put the shuttle into the net eventually. Shifeng played with much more energy and took his chances when they came as Prannoy seemingly ran out of steam in the end.
