We had belief we are winning this game: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy on Badminton Asia Championship win

By Vipul Kashyap

New Delhi [India], May 3 (ANI): The Indian duo Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, who won the Badminton Asia Championship by defeating the Malaysian duo Ong Yew Sin-Teo Eo Yi in the final, said that they fought back till the end.
Chirag said they stuck through till the end.

“I think we stuck through till the very end and we had this belief that we are still close to them, we can turn it in our favour and that’s what we did. We may not be playing our best badminton but we fought back till the very end and I think that was the one thing which worked very well for us.”

Satwiksairaj said they had a belief somewhere that they are winning this game.

“In the first half in the first set, we played okay but then we did not get the rhythm and we lost the first game. In the second game, we did not get a good start but after we got the rhythm, we were back. Somewhere we had the belief that we are winning this game.”

Chirag also said that their primary target is to qualify for the Olympics and they will strive to win big events.

Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty made history on Sunday by clinching the Badminton Asia Championships gold medal. It is India’s second medal at the tournament after 1965 and their first in the men’s doubles category.

They defeated Ong Yew Sin-Teo Eo Yi 16-21, 21-17, 21-19.

They faced Tokyo Olympics champions Lee Yang and Wang Chi-lin from Chinese Taipei in the semifinal match. The Indians won a competitive first game 21-18. Their opponents retired midway through the match due to an injury to Wang Chi-lin and the Indian pair got a walkover.