One of India’s biggest medal hopes, the men’s doubles badminton duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty bowed out in the quarter-final on Thursday.
Currently ranked fifth in the world, Satwik/Chirag lost to long-time nemesis Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik of Malaysia in a three-game thriller.
World number three pair of Aaron and Soh came back from behind to win 13-21, 21-14, 21-16.
The Indian pair started well with brilliant smashes and won the first game 21-13. While Chirag made service errors, the Indian pair came out unscathed from the first game.
In the second game, Aaron and Soh started exploiting the space left by the Indian pair. Chirag erring on the net and hitting shots wide didn’t help as the Indian pair lost 14-21.
The final game started in a balanced way for the Indian pair and they went into the mid-game break leading 11-9.
But after the change of court, the Malaysian pair came to life and started forcing errors as the Indian pair started hitting the shots wide and on the net.
With Satwik/Chirag knocked out, India’s medal hopes in badminton would lie on double medalist PV Sindhu in women’s singles and Lakshya Sen in men’s singles.