Paris ,jul 30
India’s star men’s duo Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty punched their ticket for the quarter-finals of badminton doubles with a straight-game win over Indonesia’s Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto on Tuesday at the Paris Olympics.The Indian pair, which is ranked number three, reached the knockout stage as the Group C leaders. Satwik and Chirag dominated the All-England winners and clinched 21-13, 21-13 win in a game that lasted 40 minutes. The Indian duo worked hard for each point to register a comfortable victory. The Indian duo raced to a 5-3 lead early in the first game but the Indonesian pair bounded back by taking two consecutive points and levelling the scoreline 5-5.It became a back-and-forth affair, but the Indian duo upped their game and eventually took a four-point lead, making the scoreline 15-11. The duo didn’t look back and raced to a 21-13 win in the first game.The second game was a similar story, with both pairs going neck-to-neck for each point. After 11-8, the Indian star duo took six consecutive points to take a step closer to the knockout stage.The relentless aggressive attack continued as they launched a flurry of shots to seal the game.Meanwhile, in the women’s team event, the Indian women’s duo of Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto succumbed to their third consecutive defeat in Group C to finish fourth and crash out in the group stage.They endured defeat against the Australian duo of Setyana Mapasa and Angela Yu 15-21, 10-21 in straight games on Tuesday.The Indian women’s duo struggled throughout their outing against the Australian team.
