Indian fans are heartbroken. An Olympic medal, seeming imminent, is no longer to be had.
The highly fancied pairing of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty – the history-making Indian men’s doubles pairing – met with a shocking defeat in the quarterfinals against an opponent, that had been winless against them in their last three outings.
But on Thursday, Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik got themselves back into the zone of eight consecutive wins against Satwik-Chirag, who were completely outfoxed by Aaron’s mid-game resurgence.
A bitter pill to swallow
Satwik-Chirag, the third seeds here, walked away from the La Chapelle arena with regret, which is bound to linger for a while. And this defeat will perhaps be a lot harder for them to swallow than the eight-straight matches they lost to this pair in the past.
Victories over the Malaysian pair at the Indonesia Open in 2023 and thereafter, at the Asian Games, we seen as signs of resurgence. And when the Indian pair opened with a dominant showing in the first game in the quarterfinals at Paris 2024, they appeared to be on course for another win.
But sadly thereafter, they wilted under a well-measured onslaught.
In the keenly contested clash, where the game moved back and forth, after winning the opening game 21-13 and the Indians raced ahead to 4-0 advantage in the second game.
Thereafter, the Malaysians fought back to level the game at 10-10.
But then the drops of Chirag, which normally trickle over the net, and the famed smashes of Satwik, which had split the defence of Aaron and Soh in the first game, dried up in the remainder of the match.
The Malaysians’ mid-game infusion of variations in the game put the Indians in a quandry.
Aaron, who looked crippled by the relentless attack of Chirag at the net, now had his mojo back in the second game.
The game had suddenly changed, and the Indians began making errors. As was evident in their game, they were clearly not prepared for the fightback by Aaron and Soh.
It was as if Satwik and Chirag had never countered such trickeries before.
As Aaron found a way to put his rakish service variations into great effect, the Indians looked outfoxed. To make matters worse, Chirag showed signs of nerves when playing away from the net.
As the match progressed, the Indians, undone by the Malaysians, looked timid and far from their attacking best.
They could not find a way back like the Malaysians did. Their defensive returns were sent back with flat smashes by Soh.
And with their defensive game was not working, Aaron and Soh did not give the Indians a chance to hit their smashes.
Their diagonal and short strokes, coming at a quick pace, made things harder for the Indians. With Aaron imposing his pacy strokes even during rallies and pushing Chirag in the back, Soh rushed to the net to bring the winners with drops.
Clearly, the Indians had no room to smash their way out of trouble, and thus, their fortune dried up dramatically.
And when their ordeal ended, Satwik was heart broken.
“Big heart break. We had similar heart breaks. We are used to that.”
Sindhu falls to lefty Bing Jiao
Following up on Satwik and Chirag’s upset was PV Sindhu.
Sindhu was destroyed by He Bing Jiao, an opponent she had incidentally beaten in the Tokyo Olympics to win her second successive Olympic medal.
The Indian has been a bunny of the top left-handed players and Bing Jiao, a leftie herself, resorted to an approach that was identical to the one employed by Carolina Marin, to thump Sindhu with her aerial strokes.
With a neck-to-neck game prevailing in the opening game and both players unseparated at 19-19, Sindhu looked weary and buckled under the gravity of the situation.
When the second game started, Bing Jiao tweaked her strategy. She tested Sindhu with low retrieves on her backhand and at the front net corner.
The Chinese player kept Sindhu guessing by playing drops and flicks to the forecourt to claim an 8-2 lead.
Though Sindhu managed to return many of them, her fighting instinct gradually faded away under Bing Jiao’s relentless diagonal attack.
As Bing Jiao successfully opened the backcourt wide open and finished rallies with mighty smashes, Sindhu’s hope for a hat-trick of Olympic medals was doomed.
With this defeat, her famed unbeaten streak against the Chinese at the Olympics came to an abrupt end.