Indonesia Masters 2018: “Satwik was high on confidence after PBL,” says Chirag Shetty after big win

India’s main draw campaign at the Indonesia Masters 2018 got off to a smashing start as the top men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty caused a huge upset on Wednesday. Rankireddy and Shetty, who are placed at 32nd in the world, ousted the eighth seeds and World No. 10 pair of Takuto Inoue and Yuki Kaneko of Japan to advance to the second round of this BWF World Tour Super 500 tournament held in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Such a big win in just their first match of the new season speaks volumes of the confidence that the young pair has right now in their game and in themselves. An elated Shetty shared his thoughts exclusively with Sportskeeda after booking their pre-quarter-final berth.

Chirag revealed that Satwik was highly motivated after playing a major role in the Hyderabad Hunters’ maiden title win at the Premier Badminton League 2018 and that helped a lot.

“Well it was the first tournament of the year and going into the tournament, Satwik especially was high on confidence as he had a good PBL season,” he said.

The 17-year-old Rankireddy had given a great demonstration of his steely nerves and composure when he teamed up with Pia Zebadiah of Indonesia in the mixed doubles match for a win that ultimately fetched them the title.

Even the Hyderabad captain Carolina Marin was highly impressed with the teenager, which she spoke about in the post-match press conference.

That win had naturally set Satwik up for a good show for the rest of the year.

But it takes two to tango. It was not just Satwik’s powerful smashes that steered the Indonesia Masters first round match their way on Wednesday. The 20-year-old Chirag too mesmerized the spectators with his terrific control at the net.

Shetty attributed it to good practice sessions with Korean shuttlers.

“As for me, I had good practice sessions with the Koreans. All in all, we were pretty confident of a good show.”

No matter how much faith they had in themselves, never did they envisage the score to be this one-sided against a top 10 pair in the world, which had won titles at the US Open and the Austrian Open last year, besides finishing as runners-up at the Japan Open, the Dutch Open and the China Masters.

Shetty was brutally honest in his admission when he said, “But we never expected to win this convincingly,” before adding, “So, yeah it really is a good start to the year and hopefully we will continue the momentum in the next match that is tomorrow.”

And they definitely can. They face the World No. 19 pair of Liao Min Chun and Su Ching Heng, who had to battle for 59 minutes to see off the stubborn qualifiers Akbar Bintang Cahyono and Moh Reza Pahlevi Isfahani, 14-21, 21-15, 24-22.

While the Chinese Taipei pair was made to work hard for the win, the Indians breezed past their opponents in just 33 minutes. There is every possibility that the long match might have its toll on the higher-ranked pair.

And if it happens, Rankireddy and Shetty won’t hesitate to take their chances. After all, they already know what it takes to fight it out with the very best. Having reached two quarter-finals on the Superseries circuit in their debut season last year, they have already made their mark and should be hungry for more.