At the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium here on Friday, India’s gold medalists at the Asian Games 2022, Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, together with bronze medallist HS Prannoy, recorded different wins and advanced to the India Open 2024 semi-finals. In contrast, Prannoy had to battle to earn his first-ever tournament semi-final berth by defeating Wang Tzu Wei of Chinese Taipei in a 21-11, 17-21, 21-18 triumph. Chirag-Satwik defeated Kim Astrup and Anders Rasmussen of Denmark 21-7, 21-10. Chirag-Satwik went all out on attack and quickly took an 11-3 lead to make a statement in the opening game. In just sixteen minutes, the reigning champions won the first game against the fifth seed by maintaining that momentum.
The Danish team had defeated Chirag-Satwik twice already, going into this encounter. The World No. 2 team, however, ended that run in the second game by scoring eight straight points to secure the win and set up a much-anticipated matchup with Malaysia’s Soh Wooi Yik and Aaron Chia, the former World Champions.
Chirag Shetty said, “Against them (Kim and Anders), it’s not just a game where you’re pushed skillfully; it’s also a mental test. That’s how we managed to clinch the victory. The victor of the mental contest is the one who prevails, and we performed admirably today. Normally, we wouldn’t engage in such mind games, but today we made sure to listen to them without joining in. We made a strong beginning and maintained it all the way to the finish. We are quite pleased with how we performed, and we hope to carry that energy and give it our all tomorrow.”
Like his countrymen, bronze medallist Prannoy from the World Championships 2023 got off to a fast start against his Taiwanese opponent, winning a 26-point rally to set the tone for the first game with a 13-4 lead. Even though Wang made a brief comeback, the eighth seed easily won the match. A revitalized Wang took an early lead in the second game, 13–6, and despite Prannoy’s best efforts to close the deficit, the 28-year-old managed to force a tiebreaker. In a close third game, very little separated the two players. After the scores were level at 16-16, Prannoy took a two-point advantage and won in one hour and seventeen minutes, denying Wang his fourth quarterfinal exit in the competition.
“I believe that playing against someone as skilled as Wang Tzu Wei, who is very proficient both attackingly and along the net, is never easy. Since he is someone who takes off right away, it was crucial for me to obtain that first game. Although the second game didn’t go as planned, I am rather proud of the retaliation I was able to mount in the third game. In the past six months, Shi Yu Qi has been playing incredibly well, and he appears to be a reliable player. Thus, it will be physically difficult, and the most important thing is to prepare the body for tomorrow,” HS Prannoy remarked following his triumph. The ninth-ranked player in the world will play China’s Shi Yu Qui, who is ranked sixth.
In an exciting 21-17, 18-21, 21-13 victory earlier in the day, Hong Kong’s Lee Cheuk Yiu, the bronze medallist from the Tokyo Olympics, extended his incredible run in the competition. The 27-year-old maintained his lead and eventually completed the victory to set up a semifinal matchup with Japan’s second-seeded Kodai Naraoka. Due to an unlucky injury, second seed An-Se Young’s championship defense in the women’s singles was cut short, granting Singapore’s Yeo Jia Min her first-ever semi-finals appearance at the India Open.
Jia Min will take on Tai Tzu Ying, the silver medallist from Chinese Taipei at the Olympics. Tai Tzu Ying defeated He Bing Jiao, the bronze medallist from the World Championships twice, with a commanding 21-12, 21-12 victory. In other news, Yuta Watanabe and Arisa Higashino of Japan were defeated by former world champions Dechapol Puavaranukroh and Sapsiree Taerattanachai of Thailand in a 21-17, 15-21, 27-25 score.
