By Admin 
Looking forward to its second World badminton championships medal at the Adidas Arena in Paris this August, the crack Indian men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty was up against a formidable opponent in Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik of Malaysia in the quarterfinals.
The Malaysians who had won gold in the 2021 edition of the Worlds, had a 11-3 H2H record going into the last eight clash against the Indians. Moreover, SatChi, as the Indian pair is referred to, had lost to Aaron-Soh in the semifinals of two earlier tournaments — Singapore Open (May-June 2025) and China Open (July).
The odds were heavily stacked against SatChi.
The Indians proved equal to the task, pulling off a victory in straight games. A huge victory it indeed was. As the saying goes, ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going.’
“Yeah. I think it was quite an important victory. I think beating the Malaysians at the same arena where we lost to them a year back at the [2024 Paris] Olympics was special. To come out there and beat them when they were the higher-ranked pair (third seed) felt great. And, they have been playing some really good badminton,” said Chirag, to The Hindu in a virtual interview.
Though SatChi lost in the semifinals of the Paris Worlds to Kim Won Ho and Seo Seung Jae of Korea, who went on to win the championships, the bronze medal provided the much-needed boost as they later reached two back-to-back finals of the Hong Kong Open and China Masters and reach the BWF World ranking of six.
However, the journey this season hasn’t been smooth for the Indians for they had to deal with personal issues and injuries. While Satwik lost his father early this year while dealing with back issues, Chirag, too, had a few niggles.
Satwik said: “After the 2024 Paris Olympics defeat (the pair lost in the quarterfinals to Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik), yeah, it was tough for us to digest. To come out of that, it took us a little time. I was having a back issue back then. I couldn’t figure out what went wrong and what was happening really because I was doing everything perfectly. After two days of practice, again, I was having back issues. So, I couldn’t figure it out at that time. But I figured it out later. In January, Chirag had a few niggles. I thought we had sorted out things, my father passed away in February 2025. It was tough times. And in the All England Open in March, we had injuries. From then on, it was like always we were getting better, but something or the other happened that stopped us. As we have said many times, injuries and setbacks are part and parcel of the game. We have to handle them.”
Mental reserve
To come out with all guns blazing with so much on their mind and win a second World championship bronze and enter two back-to- back BWF World Tour finals requires strong mental strength and fortitude, and SatChi showed that they have them in plenty.
At the same time, they knew what they have achieved this season so far — the pair is yet to win a World Tour title-is way below their potential but given the circumstances a great result.
Chirag put it best when he said: “I think it’s not been the most ideal year, but I think whatever we’ve been through, both personally and professionally, I think with all the injuries and stuff, I think we’ve been able to play much better than our expectations. I think a lot of people will say that ‘you have to keep playing finals’ because we’ve done that in the past, won titles. It’s very easy to make a judgment, but I think what we’ve gone through and to come out the way we have, I think in that aspect, it’s been a really good year, but still a title needs to be won. And as always, we are always hungry to go out there and win a title. I think it will eventually come.”
All said and done, the semifinals of the Paris World championships against the Chinese pair of Chen Bo Yang and Liu Yi showed the Indians need to address a few things moving forward.
In the third and final game, after Chirag’s serve was broken for the first point of the game, Liu took charge with his flick serves. The 22-year-old won eight straight points with his flick serve, making it difficult for the Indians to return them. From there on, SatChi couldn’t make a comeback.
Chirag gave full credit for the Chinese for the way used the flick serves. “I think in the third game especially, they started flicking us quite a bit. We didn’t expect them to do that because in the first two games, they didn’t really do that as often. And we were trying to be on the shuttle as possible to take it high because they were serving quite well in the front court as well. I think we could have taken a different approach where we were not dwelling so much on receiving it well. I think credit to them that they could mix it up that way.”
Secure
The re-entry of Korean’s Tan Kim Her as coach has made SatChi feel secure. Tan’s first stint with the Indian doubles team was from 2015 to 2019 and his second stint began in December 2024. SatChi have adjusted to his style after being with Danish Mathias Boe for nearly two years till the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“We were playing in European style with Mathias. It was a little different from Tan. Mathias wanted us to play longer sessions. Tan wanted us to have less training time on court but more intense. We three are on the right page. Tan was the one who made Chirag and I play together. When he came back, we felt very comfortable,” said Satwik.
SatChi have won matches against all the top world ranked players, but against the reigning World champion Korean pair of Kim Won Ho and Seo Seung Jae, they are yet to script a win.
Satwik said right now the Koreans are the ones to beat. “Obviously, right now, I think Kim Won and Seo are playing more consistently and a lot more confidently. They are very steady on the court and they don’t panic so easily. They have that confidence and their body language seems like they have all the control over the court. That comes with over the confidence like how we had when we were world number one,” said Satwik. “I still think anyone can beat anyone on any given day.”
SatChi have a lot of goals left. First, they want to do well in the BWF World Tour finals, a tournament they have played only once (in 2021, Tokyo) in the last eight editions and, of course, retain the No.1 crown.
Chirag said: “Although we’ve been in the World’s top eight for almost 7-8 years now, we have managed to play World Tour Finals once. This year, we really wanted to qualify. We are in a good place right now to qualify. We want to do as deep as possible into the tournament.”
Satwik said having tasted World No.1, they are eager to retain the tag. “That is there. We want to taste it again,” he said.
The 2025 season has taught SatChi how to manage their mind and play with injuries and get optimum results. There are a quite few BWF Tournaments left like the Denmark Open (Oct. 14 to 19) and French Open (Oct. 21 to 26) and World Tour finals (December 17 to 21 in Hangzhou).
The way the Indians have performed against numerous odds this season, a positive end to a tough, difficult and tiring season will, definitely, be an icing on the cake.