India beat Great Britain 21-17, 21-19 to win their final Group A men's doubles match but failed to qualify for quarter-finals because of inferior game difference.
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The Indian men’s pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty beat the British pair of Ben Lane and Sean Vendy 21-17, 21-19 in their final Group A Badminton match of Tokyo Olympics 2020. However despite winning the match they won’t make it to the quarter-final as Indonesia lost to Chinese Taipei in the other match of the day and that leaves India at third position in the Group behind Indonesia and Chinese Taipei. Three teams in Group A won two matches each but the other two teams have a better game difference than India. (Tokyo 2020 coverage)
Great Britain started the match with the serve and won the first point at the end of a very good long rally. But the Indian team won two back-to-back points to take a 2-1 lead. The first set was a pretty much closely fought affair. It was at 11-11 when the British pair made multiple errors and India took a two point lead. Chirag sent a powerful dipping smash to take the point at the end of a good rally. Meanwhile Sean Vendy hit the net unable to return a powerful smash and that allowed India to take a four point lead at 17-13. Although Britain closed the deficit to two points, in the end the Indian pair won the set 21-17 courtesy of Chirag Shetty’s cross court shot and the subsequent error from Ben Lane.
The second set was also a closely fought one. The Indian’s took an early two point lead through Satwik’s drop shot. Meanwhile the British fought back to level the score at 7-7 as Chirag returned the serve into the net. Both teams conceded in their serves. Sean leaped near the baseline and sent a powerful shot to Chirag to make the score 8-10. And an unforced error from India made it 10-9. However the Indian pair maintained the slender lead throughout the set and went on to win the set 21-19 as Sean’s return hit the net and handed India the match.
It was a very good performance from the Indian pair in their first ever appearance in the Olympics. They beat the third seed Chinese Taipei in their first match before going down to the number one seed Indonesian pair in the second match. And then came back strong to win the final match and get ever so close to making it to the last-8. Nevertheless it was an impressive debut Olympics for Satwik and Chirag.
