Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have made it a habit of winning matches the difficult way but on Friday, they were determined to not give anything away. They started with a bang and finished that way against Korea’s Yong Jin and Kang Min Hyuk to book a semifinal spot at the India Open and admitted later that it was pre-planned.
“We were ready to go out all guns blazing right from the word go. That’s what we wanted to do because you saw how they were able to defend towards the end. We knew they are able to capitalise and try to manoeuvre the shuttle around the court if the opponent is even a bit slow and we did not want them to come back into the game. We knew our strongest point was to put them under pressure from the beginning and happy that we stuck to it,” Shetty said after the match.
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Asked about the fightback from their opponents, Rankireddy denied they were worried at any point. “We were pretty comfortable even though they got close, we knew if we kept up the pressure, they wouldn’t be able to sustain. It was our mistake that they were able to get those extra points but there was never any tension, we were confident and it was all under control,” he said.
The Indians also moved around the court a lot, crossing over constantly to switch spots and Rankireddy admitted it was something they had worked on. “It’s the kind of style I had when I used to play mixed doubles, cross a lot like how the other Koreans are doing – it gets difficult for others. The first thing (Kim) Tan (Her) coach said when he came back was ‘get back to the old Satwik, just try cross court. You can do it, you are just not confident and simply lifting a lot of strokes’,” he revealed.
Need to get more consistent
Earlier, P.V. Sindhu was disappointed with her exit but was honest enough to admit she had made mistakes that cost her the match. “I think it was at 17-all in the third game, where maybe some of my strokes were just too parallel and into her hand. If I had played a bit more back, the outcome might have been different. But in the heat of the game, it’s anyone’s match. I felt I should have been more proactive as the rallies were long, and we had to fight for each point,” she said.
Focussed on the Indonesia Open next, Sindhu agreed that long rallies were draining and she needed to get more consistent. “It is frustrating when you play such long rallies and lose not because of a big mistake but an error for a fraction of a moment but that’s the nature of the game. I have to come back stronger and be more consistent in keeping the shuttle in play. Sometimes these things happen.”
