Star Indian pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty defeated Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang, the second-ranked Chinese pair, in an intense straight games match on Saturday to advance to the Korea Open super 500 badminton tournament’s final.
In a 40-minute match at the Jinnam stadium, the third-ranked Indian pair defeated the second-seeded Chinese pair 21-15, 24-22. Following two prior losses, it was Satwik and Chirag’s first victory over the Chinese pair.
In the summit match, Satwik and Chirag, who this year won the Swiss Open Super 500 and the Indonesia Super 1000, will compete against either the top seeds Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto of Indonesia or Kang Min Hyuk and Seo Seung Jae of Korea.
Following the premature exits of players like Kidambi Srikanth, PV Sindhu and HS Prannoy, among others, Satwik and Chirag are currently representing India in the tournament.
Notably, performance at the Korea Open contributes to players’ qualifying rankings for the Olympics in Paris in 2024. The qualification window for badminton started on May 1 this year.
The BWF World Tour has six levels: World Tour Finals, four Super 1000, six Super 750, seven Super 500 and 11 Super 300. The BWF Tour Super 100 level is another tournament category that offers ranking points.