The Indian men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty won and entered the China Masters 2023 quarters on Thursday, after beating the Japanese pair of Akira Koga & Taichi Saito 21-15, 21-16. Not just that, on a good day for the Indians, HS Prannoy also won his pre-quarters match to get into the next round.
Prannoy beat Magnus Johannsen in straight games 21-12, 21-18, without breaking a sweat. Meanwhile, all the other Indians had crashed out of the tournament on Wednesday. Kidambi Srikanth, Lakshya Sen, and Priyanshu Rajawat had all faced defeats in their opening-round matches.
Satwik-Chirag Show Class
As far as the men’s doubles match is concerned, Satwik-Chirag were locked at 7-7 with their Japanese opponents in the first game. But from there on the course of the match completely changed. The Indian duo started the second game even more convincingly and raced to a 13-7 lead at one point. But Koga and Saito did pull a few points back, but all in vain.
HS Prannoy Leads the Way in Men’s Singles
In his first meeting against the Danish Johannsen, Prannoy was rather clinical. In the first game, the Indian had a 7-3 lead and wrapped up the game soon after that. In the second, Johannsen drew parity with Prannoy at 15-15, but the Indian scored the next five points to finish any possibility of a late comeback by the 21-year-old.
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