The spell of air castles built in gold, is broken. Now the bricks-and-mortar repairs can begin in right earnest, as a scaffolding comes up around the Olympics 2024 edifice for Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty.
The Paris gold, which looked so imminent when they won the Asian Games last winter, is suddenly looking distant. And that might be the best thing to happen to them in the lead-up.
In the last four months, Satwik-Chirag have lost three tournament finals and ceded their World No 1 ranking to drop down to No 3. Friday saw the end of their Thomas Cup reign as India lost the quarterfinals 3-1 to China including the ace doubles’ 15-21, 21-11, 12-21 defeat at the hands of current World No 1s Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang. Since they are not stocks but perfectly sensible, sensitive humans, it would be wrong to say a much-needed market correction of their fortunes was underway. But these jolts will ensure their game gets fortified and refurbished ahead of the Olympics, because fundamentally, their skills are still not a complete set.
Like there was a silver lining to PV Sindhu’s epic loss at the 2017 Glasgow World Championships that pushed her to go beyond a slam-bang power-strength game and get better-rounded for 2019, these reverses will only push Satwik-Chirag to plug the gaps, look for loose wiring and debug the crevices instead of slapping on a superficial coat of gold aspirational paint. They will be divested of the notion that they have it all figured, and only need to turn up at Paris for everything to fall into place.
In the last four months, Satwik-Chirag have lost three tournament finals and ceded their World No 1 ranking to drop down to No 3. Friday saw the end of their Thomas Cup reign as India lost the quarterfinals 3-1 to Chin. (Express photo by Praveen Khanna)
The last World Championships cleaved open their troubles against left-right pairings when the Danes Anders Rasmussen-Kim Astrup sprung a nasty surprise on them. But the Thomas Cup in Chengdu was a proper shredding, the pairing in disarray during the two sets they lost to the extent that they pounced on the same shuttles and were often out of position on same side of the court. It wasn’t lack of effort, but desperate eagerness to make things work, which was jarring because division of labour and territory to guard comes so seamlessly to them on most days.
To confound matters, the duo played the second set as if nothing was wrong either side of it. Good attack, stretched rallies and giving back in kind for all the receiving misery as the Chinese assortment of serves seemed to acquire a devil’s snare in the first set.
At the heart of their troubles is the fact that the Indians have built themselves one right nemeses right on the brink of Paris, losing 5 times out of 7 to these Chinese including in key finals. Doubles badminton relies on dominating the first four strokes, and the serve and return has become tetchy territory, as various pairings – but largely Chinese with Liang Weikeng – wickedly mix their serve variations.
The variously spinning serves, but mostly the tumble serve have become a demon-like boggart in Chirag’s head, though Satwik struggles in reading it too at times. Once the return turns into a tentative scramble, what followed on Friday was blithering and blundering along the court as has never been seen in this pair. They struggled against the Indonesian flat game of Bagas Maulana-Muhammad Shohibul Fikri too on Thursday, but the Chinese coaches have worked that extra hard to make every moment wretched for the Indians knowing they will contend for gold as well.
The serves boggled and bogged the Indians down on the day. “First game they controlled net, and kept on coming, blazing. It was like Oh, you have to get ready. In 5 seconds we lost two points. It’s not about rally, rally, rally. In 10 minutes it was 11-4. I wanted to play more rallies, but how? It happened every time,” Satwik later said.
When Chirag bought himself space to hit cross, he looked in control and pumped up. But for large parts, he was subdued in attacking, and his composure is the key to this pairing. Satwik can shrug off point losses, Chirag broods and guilts himself, though he has all counters to the flat parallel game. Both their defences wilted on the day, but the serve-receiving affliction turned to disaster as they couldn’t break the shackles and dictate play. The rotation glitches made life woeful and a hint of a side drift messed them up further.
The Koreans Seo-Kang and Malaysians present another challenge of chess-like, long cerebral rallies, but it’s these short snappy exchanges of the Chinese which their coaches celebrated with cackling joy, that will push the Indians into a huddle with coaches. Mathias Boe will be expected to spend longer periods with them figuring out hacks for these varied jagged edges.
The sheer quality of men’s doubles means Satwik-Chirag might end up playing four different types of games on four days. They will have to go beyond what usually works for them. “It’s not about the rallies but first four strokes. When we did that well, we won tournaments. It’s been a good tournament, so we are not going to doubt ourselves. But a little bit lack of confidence. We have time,” Satwik insisted.
