After their gallant show against third seeds in the first match, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty ran out of steam against world No.1 pair of Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo and Marcus Fernaldi Gideon. The Indians lost 13-21, 12-21 against the Indonesians in their Group ‘A’ encounter in Tokyo on Monday.
Chirag said that they messed it up. “We started well in both the first and second games. In the second, we had a key point leading 6-3 and we were on top, it was our point, but we somehow messed it up and they played well, and from there we gave up some easy points and that frustrated us,” Chirag told the BWF website.
His teammate Satwik said they were unable to pick the service. “They are more steady now than before. Their service was really brilliant today. We couldn’t do anything on their service. We tried but we couldn’t find a way, and it’s the same story from before against them. We couldn’t find a way,” Satwik said.
The Indians now have to beat British pair of Ben Lane and Sean Vendy in their last Group ‘A’ match and expect Chinese Taipei pair of Lee Yang and Wang Chi-Lin to lose against the Indonesians.
The manner the Indians have been playing they are expected to beat Ben and Sean but if the Chinese Taipei pair stun the Indonesians, then the Indians may be in trouble as they suffered a big loss on Monday. If three teams win two matches each then they will count the number of games and if that also doesn’t decide the qualifiers it will be down to number of points.
However, the Indians will be encouraged by the fact that Lee and Wang had never defeated Sukamuljo and Gideon in their three meetings. Moreover, the Indonesians had always won in two games and that too with comfortable margins.
Meanwhile, Lee Yang and Wang Chi-Lin defeated Ben Lane and Sean Vendy of Great Britain 21-17, 21-14.
In their second Group ‘A’ match the Indians were found wanting as they failed to match the world No.1 pair. They served well but unlike in the first match, their returns were not so great. Sukamuljo in particular exploited the weak lift and dominated the match.
Moreover, Chirag injured his toe during the match and was not at his best. Though they gained an early lead of 6-3 in the second game, the Indians failed to capitalise on that as the Indonesians raced ahead with two four-point bursts from 5-7 and then 9-7. Thereafter, the Indians hardly gave a fight.