A day after ensuring medals for India, Satwik and Chirag had a chance to become the first Indian men’s doubles pair to reach the final of the World Championship, but their dream could not be fulfilled due to losing 19-21, 21-18, 12-21 in the 67-minute semi-final match on Saturday evening.
Asian Games champions Satwik and Chirag had continued to win the medal in the tournament since 2011 by defeating Malaysia’s two -time Olympic medalist Aaron Chia and Soh Wui Yik in the quarter -finals.
Satvik and Chirag adopted an aggressive attitude in the initial game and soon took a 9–3 lead, but Chen and Liu then made a brilliant comeback and left behind the Indian pair. After this, Chirag missed the third game point and China’s team managed to win the first game.
But after this, Chirag made frequent mistakes on the net and Satwik’s service was also not good, which made the Chinese pair equal to 16-16. He won 21–18 thanks to Satvik’s tremendous smash and lucky net cord and entered the decisive game.
The third game was one -sided however. Liu’s service repeatedly harassed Chirag and the Chinese pair took a 9–0 lead. The Indian pair was behind 3–11 at the time of interval and after that it failed to return.
