Our execution was wrong, says Satwiksairaj after World Championship exit

PTI, Aug 26, 2023, 10:16 AM IST

Indian shuttler Satwiksairaj Rankireddy admitted the he and his men’s doubles partner Chirag Shetty lacked in their execution during the quarterfinal loss at the World Championships but said the fact that they still managed to make it a close affair shows their ”champion mentality”.

Satwiksairaj and Chirag missed out on a second World Championships medal after suffering a shocking loss to Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen of Denmark in the men’s doubles quarterfinals on Friday.

The world number two Indian pair, which had claimed a maiden bronze in the last edition, couldn’t produce an attacking game and went down 18-12 19-21 to the 11th seeded Danish combination, the 2021 bronze winners, in a 48-minute battle.

”I think the execution was wrong, we played bad but still we were close. We were not comfortable in the match still we were 21-18 21-19, that is champion mentality,” Satwik said after the match.

Chirag found the going tough, while Satwik tried to keep India in the match but defense lapses cost them the match. The duo had levelled the scores at 15-15 after losing the opening game but fell short as the Danes proved just too good on the day.

”Didn’t get any rhythm today, I wasn’t playing at my level, I could have played better. It happens, it is sports, sometimes you can’t play at the level that you want to, but it is a stepping stone, I hope to learn from this defeat and come back,” Chirag said.

Satwik, who along with Chirag had won the Indonesia Super 1000 in June at the Istora Senayan courts in Jakarta, said they were under pressure playing against the Danes with the home crowd rooting for Kim and Anders.

”We could have prepared much better while entering the court, maybe we were under pressure due to the crowd, maybe 10 per cent more pressure I would say.

”Even when we played in Indonesia there was a huge crowd, it was loud, there we played world no. 1 and we won against them,” Satwik said.

”I prepared like this before coming to the match: there will be a lot of crowd, they obviously want to win, the quarterfinal against Denmark opponents, there are a lot of things happening, it is a big arena, I want to have fun, this is what we play for.

”When it is our day we will win but we learnt when it is not our day, how to develop a game plan, and what our strong point is. What to do when they are not lifting; when the defence is not working. We will work on it.”