Finance
On Sunday, India’s Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy won the French Open 2022 men’s doubles title and their first BWF Super 750 title.
The Indian badminton pair defeated Japanese top seeds Takuro Hoki and Yugo Kobayashi in the quarterfinals before defeating Chinese Taipei’s Lu Ching Yao and Yang Po Han in the final 21-13, 21-19.
Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy are also the first Indian doubles pair to win a BWF Super 750 title. The pair reached the final of the 2019 French Open but were defeated by Indonesian aces Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo.
This was also the first time an Indian men’s doubles team had won since Partho Ganguli and Vikram Singh in 1983 that an Indian men’s doubles pair won the French Open badminton title.
Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, the tournament’s seventh seeds and the current world No. 8 ranked men’s doubles pair in the world badminton rankings, got off to a strong start, taking the first five points of the match to set the tone.
The Indian pair easily controlled the opening game and closed it out with their aggressive style of badminton.
Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, who were playing their Chinese Taipei opponents for the first time, carried the momentum into the second game and led by six points at the half.
Lu Ching Yao and Yang Po Han, on the other hand, showed grit and clawed their way back into the game, leveling the score at 14-14.
The comeback clearly marked a shift in the match’s momentum, as Lu Ching Yao and Yang Po Han battled hard to take a 19-17 lead.
However, the in-form Indian pair, who won the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham earlier this year, displayed exceptional maturity in holding their nerves to win the game, match, and title.
