Press Trust of India

Jakarta

India’s crack doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty fought hard to advance to the final, but it was curtains for H.S. Prannoy in the men’s singles semifinals of the Indonesia Open World
Tour Super 1000 badminton event, here on Saturday.

The Commonwealth Games gold medalist duo of Satwik and Chirag, seeded seventh, overcame one-game deficit to beat unseeded Min Hyuk Kang and Seung Jae Seo of Korea 17-21 21-19 21-18 to seal their maiden Super-1000 final berth.

“We feel really good the way we played today. They made a comeback in the third game but we stuck till the end and I am happy that we didn’t run away from our tactics. We stuck to it till the very end.
First time we are in a Super 1000 final and so it feels good,” Chirag said after
the win.

“They (Koreans) too have a really strong defence, so it was sort of an attack vs defence game. You just can’t blindly attack them. We were mixing it up.”

Asked about Sunday’s final: Satwik responded: “It’s a new day, get back and recover our body first. I was not feeling 100% in the first game. Slowly I got my rhythm in the second game.”

The win also extended their overall head-to-head record over Kang and Seo to 3-2.

World No. 6 pair will now face the winners Pramudya Kusumawardana and Yeremia Erich Yoche Yacob Rambitan of Indonesia and second seeds Aaron Chia and Wooi Yik Soh of Malaysia.