It’s the sort of scorching form Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty were in at the Korea Open last year. Where they were tearing oppositions to shreds, while not sheathing their attack or tempering it with caution. Just pure, blistering two-pronged offence as they seemed to be flying often. In a similar vein, the opponents couldn’t stem the floods at the Super 1000 Malaysia Open, one of the Tour’s four big ones, as the 2024 season begins.
He Ji Ting and Ren Xiang Yu of China might have been dismissed 21-11, 21-8 in 35 minutes by the ruthless Indians. But theirs was an exhausting siege when aided by fast-court conditions at the Axiata Arena in Kuala Lumpur. The Indians didn’t hold back, from start to a crisp finish.
Only for 3 points at the start of the second game did the Chinese lead in the match, but both games had 7-point barrages from the Indians when the shuttle just fell around Chinese feet like thunderbolts as He-Ren twisted and turned and ultimately were left deluged by the raining smashes.
🏸 SAT-Chi Power! 🇮🇳💥
Dominating the court at Malaysia🇲🇾 Open 2024, @satwiksairaj and @Shettychirag04 outplay the Chinese🇨🇳 Jiting-Ren 21-11, 21-8 in the QF, smashing their way 🚀into the SF! 🔥
Onward and upward, champs! 🥳🙌 pic.twitter.com/CDgSGvum1K
— SAI Media (@Media_SAI) January 12, 2024
Satwik didn’t start tentative like he usually does, and his bolting out of the blocks and taking charge even in the front court meant the Chinese never settled. They had little time for prologues or dramatic detours of trading leads. Jump-hit-serve was their repeat settings for the day.
The Indians took the drift out of the equation by slam-dunking to the centre of the court, so that the lines didn’t come into the picture. But it was the confidence with which they smashed down the middle, the sharp steepness and slashing speed that gave the Chinese no defensive opportunities to free themselves out of corners. They looked clueless at 10-1 down in the opener, and by the time it was 14-4 in the second, they were drained of colour.
The count of forced lifts from the Indians will read in lower single digits, and almost 80 percent for the Chinese. Perhaps one such came at 14-6 in the opener, right after the Chinese had begun to crawl back towards trying to make this a contest. They sent Chirag scurrying around on his long lateral strides and even rushed Satwik with two returns. The pace had been blistering, so Satwik did the smart thing by sending the shuttle into a quality high lift – earning some time to organise their defence. The Indians regrouped immediately and Chirag turned the tables by baiting both Chinese to the left, even as Satwik killed off the point with a slash to the right.
In the shorter rallies, the Indians snapped the Chinese shut with one-leg hop-smashes. It’s the sort of scarring loss that pushes Chinese pairs back to the drawing board.
World champions next
When things are going swimmingly well, the threat of jeopardy on the following day is to be expected. It comes in the form of Kang Min-hyuk and Seo Seung-jae, the low-key reigning World champions.
That Seung-jae, who won world titles in both doubles and mixed in 2023, has chosen to focus solely on men’s doubles means things are getting serious. The Indians enjoy a 3-1 head-to-head against the pairing that poses little visible threat, but the Koreans are just the sort of combination to trip up the confident duo, if the Indians don’t watch out for the slantways threats.
The Koreans typically don’t enjoy these conditions, but this pairing adapts as well as the Chinese Liang-Wang. They are a left-right combination, and after the last World Championships loss to Astrup-Rasmussen, the Indians need to be on a perennial vigil against the left-right combination of angles.
Chirag will be drawn into battles more by the Koreans than the Chinese, and with their sturdier defence, they will not allow a demolition job like on Friday. Chirag’s net game meets its match in the Koreans and he will need to patiently read their patterns, though past match-ups haven’t proven especially challenging. But heading into a Thomas Cup summer, and given how sticky it got in the last faceoff, expect the Koreans to be a handful.
Fikri/Maulana 🇮🇩 clash against No.2 seeds Rankireddy/Shetty 🇮🇳.#BWFWorldTour #MalaysiaOpen2024 pic.twitter.com/rr8rJ6nd6H
— BWF (@bwfmedia) January 10, 2024
They are world champions for a reason, and Seung-jae’s bag of tricks is infinite. Mathias Boe will have a task on his hands in getting the Indians to persist with their hit-all offence even when the Koreans send everything back. Seo-Kang cannot be blitzed like the Chinese, and Indians are capable of operating with wildly different playing styles, but Satwik remains the key as does Chirag’s poise at the net.
Each of the four matches against the Koreans – even if Indians won 3 of them – got tight towards the end. The last game scores read 23-21, 20-22, 21-19 and 21-18, with things getting very interesting around the 17-point mark. Seo-Kang keep their fighting best for the last, and the current World Nos.3 will not allow an easy ride to the Indians. A quarterfinal was taken with brutal ease, but the semifinal will not be at all pleasant, even as Satwik-Chirag aim for their first final of the season.
In their quarterfinals to silence the Malaysian crowd, Seo-Kang lulled Aaron-Soh into believing they were cruising, before they flipped the result in a three-game contest. Satwik-Chirag lost just one semifinal in 2023 out of 7 Saturdays, and that was at the Malaysia Open. They will hope 2024 starts better.
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