New Delhi: The brown tape wrapped around Satwiksairaj Rankireddy’s right shoulder was impossible to miss. Neither was the way he kept testing it, stretching, rotating, preparing himself for the demands of a big-stage match, nearly three months since their last competitive outing.By the time the first rally began, the fifth-seeded Indian pair of Satwik and Chirag Shetty knew they were stepping into tough territory. They had entered the World Championships here with a first-round bye and a second-round walkover, meaning Thursday was, quite literally, their first foray of the tournament. Malaysia’s Junaidi Arif and Yap Roy King, meanwhile, were ready to test every bit of their rust.They did exactly that.And yet, when the pressure peaked, Satwik and Chirag found a way. In a pulsating 82-minute round-of-16 battle, the Indians recovered from losing a nerve-shredding opening game 21-23 to beat Arif and Roy King 21-23, 21-19, 21-17 and march into the quarterfinals. It was their fifth win in five meetings against the Malaysian pair.But the numbers hardly tell the story.The first game had everything — crisp defence, frantic exchanges at the net, challenges, smashes and the sort of rallies that left the crowd gasping. Satwik and Chirag led 11-8 at the interval and appeared to have established control at 17-14. Then the Malaysians began clawing their way back.At 18-all, the match had become a test of nerve. Chirag produced a winner to make it 19-all, only for the Malaysians to earn game point. Satwik saved one with a furious winner, then another. At 21-21, however, Arif and Roy King finally got their chance again. This time, they took it.The Indians opened the second game 2-0, but the Malaysians refused to disappear. At 4-4, the contest was once again finely balanced. Then came one of the defining moments of the evening. At 8-5, with the Indians leading, Chirag threw himself into a full-length dive to retrieve a smash, hit the floor, somehow got back onto his feet and then finished the point.The Indian pair moved to 9-5 and 11-8, but Arif and Roy King kept coming. Soon, Satwik and Chirag were trailing 15-16 and then 16-18. The match seemed to be slipping away again. Instead, they summoned another comeback and took the game 21-19. When the win came, the roar inside the arena said it all.In the decider, there was little separating the pairs early on. At 8-8, the Malaysians edged ahead and carried an 11-8 lead into the final break. Satwik and Chirag were once again staring at a deficit.But they chipped away with their attacking smashes and net shots. A well-worked rally brought them to 16-16 and the match was level again. At 19-17, Satwik took over. He produced outstanding defensive efforts, coupled with intelligent rallies, to keep the contest alive. Chirag was equally effective with his powerful smashes.The Indians earned two match points and a final Malaysian error into the net meant Satwik killed the shuttle.“We knew it was going to be tough,” Satwik said afterwards. “We weren’t playing at our best. Eventually, we knew we had to keep it simple. We just try to tell each other that eventually things will turn in our favour.”Asked how the shoulder held up, Satwik was reassuring but also made clear where his priorities lay.“I was more worried about my health rather than the strategy. It’s been a while since we played. I didn’t know how the body would respond. In practice, it was 100% good. But in competition, it’s very different. You get more tense in the shoulders. I was very happy in the third game. There were no bad signals. It was all positive.”The Malaysians had repeatedly tried to dominate the net, knowing the slow shuttles would make lifting dangerous against Satwik and Chirag. The Indians knew it was coming.“They usually prefer playing and dominating the net,” Chirag said. “They knew the shuttles were quite slow. They didn’t want to lift as many times to us. So they were the first ones to try to create opportunities for themselves.”Now comes a far bigger test. The victory sets up a quarterfinal against third seeds Chinese Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang.‘When we were down, the crowd carried us through it’Meanwhile, the women’s doubles duo of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand provided a sparkling silver lining.The Indian pair stormed into the quarterfinals with a dominant 21-16, 21-12 victory over Japan’s seventh seeds Rin Iwanaga and Kie Nakanishi in 44 minutes.“The crowd is so amazing. In the moments when we were down, the crowd really carried us through it,” Treesa said.“This win is a huge boost of confidence for us,” Gayatri said.In mixed doubles, however, Dhruv Kapila and Tanisha Crasto bowed out following a 16-21, 5-21 loss to China’s sixth-seeded combination of Guo Xinwa and Chen Fanghui.
