Commonwealth Games gold medallists Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty played advanced to the semifinals of the Malaysia Open Super 750 badminton tournament on Friday. India's star duo beat BWF World Tour Finals champions Liu Yu Chen and Ou Xuan Yi in three games.
The Chirag-Satwik pair, seeded seventh, toiled to get the better of the Chinese duo 17-21, 22-20, 21-9 in the men's doubles quarterfinals. They will play another Chinese pair, Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang, in the last-four round.
Earlier, India's HS Prannoy went down fighting to world No. 7 Japanese Kodai Naraoka in a gruelling three games in the men's singles quarterfinals.
In the contest that lasted for 84 minutes, the 30-year-old from Kerala lost 16-21 21-19 10-21 to the 21-year-old Naraoka. This was Naraoka's third win over Prannoy in as many meetings. He had defeated Prannoy in three games at the Singapore Open and World Tour Finals last year.
In the game, The Japanese dominated the rallies with his variety of strokes, while Prannoy erred with his line to fall five points behind at the interval. As the match wore on, Prannoy's accuracy suffered as he missed the lines on both flanks, allowing Naraoka to move to a 14-6 lead. The Japanese were more patient in the rallies and pounced on any little opportunity to keep moving ahead.
At 7-17, the Indian unleashed a straight smash to break the run of points but a string of errors from a tired-looking Prannoy handed his opponent 12 match points. Naraoka sealed it in his third attempt with a body smash.
