Yeosu, July 22 (Hist.). The Indian men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty on Saturday entered the finals of the Korea Open 2023 Badminton tournament. The Indian pair defeated China’s Liang Wei Keng/Wang Chang 21-15, 24-22 in the semifinals at the Jinnam Stadium here to enter the final.
It was Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty’s first win over the Chinese World No. 2 pair in three meetings. Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang had defeated the Indian pair at the All England Open and Malaysia Open earlier this year. The pair of Commonwealth Games gold medalists Satwik and Chirag have already won the Swiss and Indonesia Open titles on the 2023 BWF World Tour.
In the Korea Open final, they will face the winner of the other semi-final match between Indonesian top seeds Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Riyan Ardianto and Republic of Korea’s Kang Min Hyuk and Seo Seung Jae on Sunday. This will be the Indian pair’s third appearance in a BWF Super 500 tournament, having won their previous two appearances at the 2019 Thailand Open and 2022 India Open. This is also his third final of the year.
After a tight start to the match, third seeds Satwiksairaj and Chirag won five consecutive points to take the lead in the first game from 9-8 to 14-8. After this, the Indian badminton players took the first game easily by catching the momentum.
In the second game, Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang, trailing 14-9 at one point, leveled the scores at 19-19, but from here the Indians came back strongly and won the game 24-22 to enter the final. This fight lasted for 40 minutes. Let us tell you that the results of the Korea Open will be counted in the qualifying ranking of the players for the Paris 2024 Olympics. The qualification window for badminton has already started from May 1 this year.
