Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty had their moments but ultimately fell short in the semi-finals of the men’s doubles event at BWF World Championships 2025 badminton tournament as India’s campaign in Paris wrapped up on Saturday.
Ninth seeds Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty were beaten 21-19, 18-21, 21-12 by the People’s Republic of China’s Chen Boyang and Liu Yi in a match that lasted an hour and seven minutes.
Their run to the semi-finals guaranteed them a bronze medal and ensured that India’s streak of winning at least one medal at every BWF World Championships since 2011 remained unbroken.
Satwik-Chirag had also bagged bronze at the 2022 edition of the BWF World Championships in Tokyo.
The Indian duo made a flying start, racing to a 4-0 lead and carrying an 11-5 cushion into the mid-game break. However, the Chinese pair stormed back after the interval, seizing a 14-13 lead before clinching the opener on their third game point.
In the second game, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty surged to a 5-1 lead but saw it cut to 11-9 at the interval.
They pulled ahead again at 16-11 after the break, only for Chen Boyang and Liu Yi to claw back level before a thrilling 32-shot rally gave Satwik-Chirag the game point to force a third game.
In the decider, Chen Boyang and Liu Yi flipped the script in dramatic fashion by racing to a 9-0 advantage and sweeping past the Indian badminton players to book their place in the final.
This was Satwik-Chirag’s first loss in two matches against the Chinese duo, having previously gotten the better of them in the final of the Thailand Open last year.
It was also Satwik-Chirag’s fifth semi-final exit of the year after the Indian, Singapore, Malaysian and China Opens.