Indian duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty on Sunday lost the Malaysian Open final 9-21, 21-18, 21-17 against Chinese pair of Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang. Satwik-Chirag won the first set before losing the next two to dash the Indian hopes.
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The Indian duo made a blistering start to the Malaysia Open final. Satwik and Chirag came fully prepared against their Chinese opponents and executed their gameplan perfectly in the first. The Indian duo played shots close to their opponents’ bodies, forcing unforced errors from Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang.
Chirag and Satwik took an early lead in the first set and never looked back. The Indian duo carved out point after point to put the first set beyond the Chinese pair’s reach. The Indian duo ultimately won the first set comfortably, by a margin of 21-9.
The Chinese duo made a comeback into the second set, as the Indians made a few unforced errors. In the halfway of the second set, the Chinese pair led 11-6 as the match became intense. Satwik and Chirag kept pushing in spite of the Chinese pair’s advantage as both teams committed quite a few unforced errors in the second set. Satwik and Chirag curtailed the gap of the Chinese to 14-12 at one point of time in the second set. The Indian pair picked up points of some well-placed shots to close the gap to 18-19. However, the Chinese duo took the last two points to push the final in the final set.
The match went right down to the wire in the third set as both pairs pushed to cross the final frontier. The final set went neck-to-neck although both sides made some unforced errors. However, the Chinese duo appeared more resilient in the third set and clinched the set 21-17 to win the Malaysian Open.
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