Indian top badminton duo of S. Ranikereddy and Chirag Shetty secure India’s first-ever medal in men’s doubles after defeating Japanese World No. 2 T. Hoki and Y. Kobayashi at BWF World Championship in Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, Japan on Friday.
The world No. 7 Indian duo, which had won the gold medal at Birmingham Commonwealth games last month, defeated Japanese world top players in two sets of three set games as 24-22, 15-21, 21-14, just in a hour and 15 minutes.
On the other hand, the duo of D. Kapila and Arjun MR who were also hoping to secure the medal for India in men’s doubles at the same venue and same tournament lost their quarterfinal battle against the Indonesian pair of H Setiawan and M Ahsan.
The world’s 35-seeded Indian pair, who had some sensational wins this week, lost 8-21, 14-21 to the third-seeded Indonesian pair in less than 30 minutes. Following the above loss, the world’s 35-seeded Indian pair ended their campaign for BWF World C’ships2022.
Earlier, on Thursday, August 25, the Indian duo of S.Ranikereddy and C. Shetty had registered a straight win over Danish players J Bay and L Molhede 21-12, 21-10 in the pre-quarterfinal battle, while D. Kapila and Arjun MR dominated over Singaporean KH Loh and his mate H Terry 18-21, 21-15, 21-16. Kapila and Arjun were slow in the first set, but they bounced back in the second set with a win and were continue in the form and won the third set 18-21, 21-15, 21-16.
After winning the quarterfinal match over the Japanese world no. 2 pair of Hokdo and Kobyashi, the Indian star shuttlers Ranikereddy and Shetty became the first Indian men’s doubles pair, and the second Indian pair after Guttajawala and P Ashwini, to assure themselves of a medal at the BWF World Championships 2022.
The Star men’s double duo also made a big achievement after great win over Japanese players as both Indian shuttler joined the elite list. Earlier, Prakash Padukone (Bronze-1983), Ashwini Ponappa/Jwala Gutta (Bronze- 2011), PV Sindhu (Gold-2019), (Silver-2017 & 2018), (Bronze- 2013, 2014), Saina Nehwal (Silver-2015), (Bronze- 2017), Sai Praneeth (Bronze-2019), Kidambi Srikanth (Silver-2021), Lakshya Sen (Bronze-2021) have brought medal for the country.
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