The Indian duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty won the Swiss Open 2023 after defeating China's Ren Xiang Yu and Tan Qiang 21-19, 24-22. The world no. 6 pair took down the world no. 21 pair in a little under an hour to win the Super 300 event in St. Jakobshalle at Basel, Switzerland.
This was Rankireddy-Shetty's first BWF doubles title of 2023, and the fifth World Tour title in their career. This victory comes after a difficult start to the year as they managed to reach the round-of-16 stage in just one of five other tournaments. Their best result so far was the final of the Malaysia Open in January.
But these results haven’t been based on poor performance as the pair has also been dealing with multiple injuries. Rankireddy was out for a month, ruling him out of India's win in the Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championships.
The Indian pair got off to a quick start as they took an early 3-1 lead. But soon the Chinese duo came back to level the score 6-6. Rankireddy and Shetty were gradually building a lead but Yu and Qiang remained in striking distance. The Indian went five points ahead taking a 17-12 lead before the World Number 21 came back at the score of 16-18. Rankireddy and Shetty held their nerves and soon finished off Game 1 21-18.
Unlike the first game, the Chinese pair were on the front foot in the second game. Both teams were going blow-for-blow as they were often level on points. This intense back-and-forth until Yu and Qiang went up 18-20. But the Indians continued their winning spirit from the first game as they came back from three game points and won the match 22-24.
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