Satwik-Chirag win historic doubles silver

Satwik and Chirag lost 13-21 16-21 to Rio Olympics bronze medallist English pair of Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge in a 39-minute men’s doubles final at the Carrara Sports Arena. With the silver clinched by Satwik and Chirag, India ended its highly successful badminton campaign with six medals, which include the mixed team event gold.

At 17 and 20 respectively, Satwik and Chirag form a formidable pair. It was the Tata Open India International Challenge win that brought them into limelight in 2016. They also won in Mauritius and Bangladesh, but their biggest win came last year when they clinched the Vietnam Open International Challenge. They had managed to topple former Olympic and world champion Markis Kido and his partner Hendra Gunawan en route the title.

They also qualified for the Glasgow World Championship and managed to reach the quarterfinals at the Korea Open and the French Open. This year, Satwik and Chirag made it to the semi-finals at Indonesia Masters and All England quarterfinals. “We are very disappointed. We hoped the tactics that we used, the things we wanted to apply, would count on the scoreboard, but we couldn’t do that so we’re a bit disappointed. We didn’t get the feeling right from early on,” Chirag said of the straight-game loss.