World Championships: Satwik-Chirag claim India's first men's doubles medal, HS Prannoy suffers heartbreak

Tokyo: Men’s doubles pairing of Satwiksairaj Reddy and Chirag Shetty assured themselves of a maiden medal at the World Championships after stunning World No 2 Takuro Hoki and Yugo Kobayashi of Japan in the quarterfinals on Friday. However, it was heartbreak for HS Prannoy whose impressive run ended in agony.

Satwik-Chirag, ranked No 7 in the world, who had claimed the Commonwealth Games gold medal earlier this month, dished out a gritty performance to outwit the local hopes and defending champions 24-22, 15-21, 21-14 in an hour and 15 minutes to claim India first-ever men’s doubles medal at the prestigious tournament.

Rankireddy and Shetty win 🇮🇳 an intense first game 🏸.

Follow live action: https://t.co/TjoFnU4PnB#BWFWorldChampionships #Tokyo2022 pic.twitter.com/bXL6cIXQyw

— BWF (@bwfmedia) August 26, 2022

Satchi Winning Moments #BWC2022#BWFWorldChampionships2022 pic.twitter.com/EQ7Sk6OQhA

— Team Bharat 🇮🇳 🥇 (@YTStatslive) August 26, 2022

It was India’s second World Championships medal in doubles with Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa claiming the first way back in 2011 in the women’s doubles.

It also continued India’s medal winning run at the Worlds. Since 2011, India have won a medal at each edition. In women’s singles, PV Sindhu has won five medals, including a gold in 2019, and Saina Nehwal has won two. Among the men, Kidambi Srikanth, Lakshya Sen, B Sai Praneeth were the other medallists.

This one will hurt for a while 😔

Gave my all today but was not enough to get into the World Championships podium once again.

Proud of the way I played this week.
Thanks for all the support ❤️ pic.twitter.com/fn5ii0aPkj

— PRANNOY HS (@PRANNOYHSPRI) August 26, 2022

It could have been double delight for India but China’s Zhao Jun Peng had other plans as he broke Prannoy’s heart with a 19-21, 21-6, 21-18 win. The final image was telling as World No 8 went down on one knee with his head hanging in disappointment after the gut-wrenching loss.

Earlier, MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila’s fine run in men’s doubles came to an end after the pair lost to three-time gold medallists Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan in the quarterfinals.

The unseeded Indian combination, who had some sensational wins this week, lost 8-21, 14-21 to the Indonesian pair in less than 30 minutes.

Having assured themselves of at least a bronze medal, Satwik and Chirag will now face the sixth seeded Malaysian pair of Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik in the semifinals.

The Indians had earlier defeated eighth seeds Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen of Denmark in the second round.

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