China Masters: Rankireddy-Shetty, Lakshya Sen Progress to Quarters

India’s top men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have progressed to the quarterfinals of the China Masters badminton tournament after registering a 21-19, 21-15 win over Denmark’s Rasmus Kjaer and Frederik Sogaard on Thursday. Rankireddy and Shetty were the first Indians to win the match in the day and move ahead in the tournament after P.V. Sindhu, Anupama Upadhyaya, Malvika Bansod and women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand lost their respective second round matches in this BWF World Tour Super 750 event.

Facing the World No. 15 pair, the Indian duo, playing their first tournament after the Paris Olympics, showed their dominance on the court despite trailing 5-2 in the first game and took a slender 11-9 lead during the break.

The Danish duo gave a tough fight but the Indians ensured that they didn’t trail in the match as the former showed great skills on the court. In the last, Rankireddy and Shetty managed to win the game 21-19.

In the next game, Rankireddy-Shetty learned from their previous mistakes and started on high with three consecutive points to take a 6-3 lead. However, the Danish opponents tried to mark their presence in the game but the Indian pair didn’t give them enough room to take a lead and went on to win 21-15. The World No. 9 ranked Indian pair won the match in 44 minutes and will face Denmark’s Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen in the quarterfinal match on Friday.

In the men’s singles match, Lakshya Sen outclassed Denmark’s Rasmus Gemke 21-16, 21-18 to advance to the quarterfinals of the tournament.

With the win, Sen extended his head-to-head to 4-1 against Gemke and is the only Indian player left in the singles category. The 23-year-old had a brilliant start as he took an early lead on his opponent and went on to solidify it further to take the first game 21-16.

In the second game, Gemke tried his level best to match Sen’s energy but failed to overpower him in the battle. The Indian shuttler closed the match after sealing the game 21-18 to book a berth in the quarters.