Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty stormed into the semifinals of the Malaysia Open BWF Super-1000 tournament in Kuala Lumpur on Friday. But it was curtains for Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto as the world No. 24 Indian duo lost 15-21, 13-21 to the No. 15 Japanese pair of Rin Iwanaga and Kie Nakanishi in the quarterfinals.
The Indians were in the match till 13-14 in the first game before the Japanese raced to victory by winning the next seven points. The Indians led 7-1 at one stage before the Japanese made a splendid comeback, hitting hard and retrieving well.
From 13-14, they moved to 18-14 and easily won the match. Satwik-Chirag were at their dominant best against He Ji Ting and Ren Xiang Yu.
The world No. 2 pair took just 35 minutes to outclass the world No. 32 Chinese 21-11, 21-8. This will be the second consecutive semifinal appearance for the Indians, who won the Asian Games gold and claimed the Asian continental crown last year.
Involving their rivals in sharp exchanges and hitting smashes with ease, the Indian duo began aggressively with a 7-0 lead and widened it to 14-6 before closing the first game.
In the second game, the Indians zoomed ahead from 7-4 to 14-4. They hardly gave time for their rivals to settle and finished the match in style. They will face the winners of the other quarter -final between third seeds Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik of Malaysia and sixth seeds Kang Min Hyuk and Seo Seung Jae of South Korea, in the semis.
From the other half, top seeds Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang of China play seventh seeds Takuro Hoki and Yugo Kobayashi of Japan. The Chinese ousted Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto of Indonesia 16-21, 21-17, 21-18. The Japanese defeated Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee yi of Malaysia 21-15, 21-19.
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