China Open: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty storm into semi-final

The Indian pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty booked their place in the semi-final of the men's doubles event of the ongoing China Open after clinching a comfortable straight games victory in their quarterfinal clash in Fuzhou on Friday.

Satwiksairaj and Chirag hardly broke a sweat against the Chinese team of Li Jun Hui and Liu Yu Chen to seal a comfortable 21-19, 21-15 triumph in a one-sided last-eight clash that lasted 43 minutes. 

With the win, the Indian shuttlers have now set up a clash against the Indonesian team of Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo for a place in the summit showdown of the tournament.

On Thursday, Satwiksairaj and Chirag rebounded strongly from the second game down to seal a 21-18 21-23 21-11 win over Hiroyuki Endo and Yuta Watanabe of Japan and storm into the last-eight of the tournament. 

Notably, Satwiksairaj and Chirag are the only Indian shuttlers left in the tournament after B Sai Praneeth and Parupalli Kashyap crashed out in their respective second round of the men's singles and Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu made an exit in the first round of the women's singles event.