India’s veteran badminton pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have confirmed their place in the final of the China Masters. In the semi-final match played on Saturday, they defeated the Malaysian pair 21-16, 18-21, 21-11. The match lasted for about 1 hour and 6 minutes. Now in the title match, they will face the home pair of China. Satwik and Chirag have reached the final of this tournament for the third time in the last four years, but they have not been able to win this trophy even once so far. In such a situation, this time the fans are fully expecting him to become a champion for the first time. In May this year, Satwik-Chirag won the Singapore Open trophy.
The world’s number 5 Indian pair of Satwik and Chirag have made it to the finals by showing a brilliant game. After a brief interruption in the second set, they defeated the 29th-ranked pair of Malaysia in a match that lasted 1 hour and 5 minutes. Even before this, the pair has been the runner-up (runner-up) of this tournament in 2023 and 2025. The pair, who won the gold medal at the Asian Games, will now face the Chinese pair in the title match. Even before this match, Satwik and Chirag had a much better record (2-0) against this Malaysian pair, in which they also defeated them in the 2024 Thailand Open and 2025 Malaysia Open.
Satwik-Chirag were ahead 11-9 at half-time
At the start of the match, the fourth-seeded Indian pair was trailing 0-5, but after that Satwik and Chirag made a great comeback to win 7 consecutive points. During this period, a long rally of 34 shots was also seen, thanks to which India took a 7-5 lead. Taking advantage of the mistakes of Malaysian player Noor, the Indian pair took a 10-6 lead. Although Satwik and Chirag also made some misses, they still led 11-9 at half-time.
The Indian pair performed brilliantly in the last set
In the last set, Satwik and Chirag held on to long shots and took an 11-4 lead at half-time. After this, Satwik hit another strong smash to make India’s score 13-6. As the match progressed, the Malaysian players began to get tired and their morale began to wane. After this, the entire game came under the control of the Indian pair. With the help of a precise shot from Chirag, India got a big lead of 11 points (match point) to win the match. Malaysian player Tan saved the first two points, but Chirag scored points with his clever serve in the third time to put the match in India’s bag.
