India's Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty reached the Singapore Open Super 750 final on Saturday after defeating South Korea's world No. 1 pair Kim Won Ho and Seo Seung Jae in the men's doubles semifinal. 

The fourth-seeded Indian pair won 21-19, 21-18 in 52 minutes, winning in straight games. This marks their first win over the Korean pair in three meetings and has ended the South Korean pair's 34-match winning streak.

Satwik and Chirag trailed behind 8-13 and then picked up to 13-17 in the opening game before steadily fighting stronger. They ended in a tie of 17-all mid-game before taking the lead, and closing the game 21-19. 

The second game followed a similar pattern and was controlled by the Indian pair. They used heavily aggressive net play with sharp smashes, and good court coverage carried them to finish with 21-18. 

This result put the Indian pair back on the leading contenders lineup on the BWF World Tour.

Former world No. 1s  Kim Won Ho and Seo Seung Jae themselves are Asian Games gold medalists and multiple World Tour title winners who had faced their own inconsistencies with injuries and fitness concerns earlier this season. 

Chirag-Satwiksairaj ended up finishing runners-up at the Thailand Open this year before sitting out last week's Malaysia Masters. Back on court in Singapore, they are now preparing for the finals of the Singapore Open on Sunday.

End of a Remarkable Winning Run

Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty both had faced this pair twice before, once at the Malaysia Open semifinals and the China Masters final last year. They ended up losing both times. 

Chirag acknowledged that those meetings helped shape their performance on Saturday.

 "We only played them twice, actually... we realised if we have to beat them, we have to be steady because we knew they have the strongest defence in the circuit," he said.

Satwik explained how their aggressive play was the key to winning this match, "Just keep pushing on to the net, I felt they were not in a comfortable position to defend. It's always a slow start for us; we need to adjust a little bit," he said.

Chirag continued on the same statement, talking about keeping their winning hopes high even in situations that felt difficult,

"Even when we were down, we kept backing each other and sticking around, and eventually we knew they would crack at some point. If we stick to our plans, plans we knew would work. We had that belief, and it went well for us."

"I think we are in the right direction, and improvement is an ongoing process. You will never be perfect; there is always scope for improvement, and we keep pushing ourselves. We think we are on the right track," Chirag added.

Satwik and Chirag will face the winners of the second semifinal, third-seeded Indonesians Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Shohibul Fikri, this Sunday.

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Written by

Aadhya Nalla

Edited by

Koushik Biswas