Indonesia Open: Satwik-Chirag, Prannoy enter semifinal; Srikanth crashes out

Jakarta: Asian champions Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty trounced world no. 1 home-favorite men’s doubles pair Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto to enter the semifinal of the ongoing Indonesia Open, a BWF Super 1000 badminton tournament, here on Friday.

The duo of Satwik and Chirag registered an easy 21-13, 21-13 victory over the Indonesians in 41 minutes.

Satwik and Chirag will play the winner of the quarterfinal between Korean duo of Min Hyuk Kang and Seung Jae Seo and Indonesia’s Leo Rolly Carnando and Daniel Marthin.

In the men’s singles, Kidambi Srikanth’ campaign came to an end in the quarterfinal after losing a hard-fought battle to China’s Li Shi Feng. Srikanth suffered a 14-21, 21-14, 12-21 loss in one hour and nine minutes against world No.10 Chinese.

With this win, Feng equalled the head-to-head record against Srikanth, which stands at 1-1.

Later, Malaysia Masters champion Prannoy HS got the better of world no. 4 Kodai Naraoka of Japan 21-18, 21-16 in straight games to secure his spot in the semifinals.

This was Prannoy’s first win over the Japanese in five meetings. The pair’s last meeting was in the Singapore Open last week, where Naraoka ousted the Indian in the opening round.

Prannoy will next face either top seed Viktor Axelsen of Denmark or third seed Taipei shuttler Chou Tien Chen.