Indonesia Open: Satwik-Chirag survive litany of errors, clutch up in end game to reach last eight

Out of these far-from-ideal moments in a 68-minute cliffhanger, full of landslides, hatched out a 16-21, 21-18, 22-20 win that put the Indians into the quarterfinals of the Indonesia Open Super 1000 – one of the four biggest Tour events in badminton.

As Satwik-Chirag beat Danish Rasmus Kjaer and Frederik Sogaard, who had evicted World No 3 Aaron-Wooi in the previous round, some jarring notes were hit, before the last 3 minutes of the game suddenly turned magical. It was bad badminton all-round, but none more wincing for those watching than when the two Indians clanged their racquets twice, going for the same shuttle in shuddering moments of confusion.

The Indian attack, which is always so cohesive, lacked any sting and was drowning in scratchy shot-making and cacophonous exchanges. (BWF/Badminton Photo)

Chirag was faulted on his serve multiple times; Satwik’s service was plain pulped and smothered by Kjaer-Sogaard, and that wasn’t even the worst of the sorry statistics. The Danes deployed tumble serves freely and fiendishly, and were under strict orders to inflict maximum damage on the Indians via a known vulnerability – Satwik-Chirag’s tentative return of serves that has blighted their past two seasons.

The Indian attack, which is always so cohesive, lacked any sting and was drowning in scratchy shot-making and cacophonous exchanges. Chirag was mighty cagey at the net initially, and Satwik a tad unsure of whether to fill in on the front court or control from the back. All this meant, the Danes, unusually upbeat and bouncy, led through the first set, and took it on a canter.

At the change of ends, the Indian nerves settled. And though they remained mismatched in their tempo and prone to errors with their tame lifts, the basic serve and receiving in the first three shots got calmer. Chirag – as it happens so often – forgot about trying to make his net-job seem perfect and precise, and allowed his instinct to rule as he started getting in winners, freeing up Satwik to send his pushes and curling lifts to scatter the Danes. They went from 14-14 to 19-14 in a jiffy with smarter interceptions, and pushed the decider.

The racquets clashing at 8-8, a Kjaer flick serve looping over them and shoddy high lifts made them look like a pair that was World No 22. But of course, at a cellular, fundamental level, these are World No 1s, with an ability to win in their sinewy muscle memory. So the match rumbled on to 19-19.

It was here that Satwik, went for broke with a risky flat drive serve that no analyst might find a precedent of against his name. “It was maybe game awareness,” he told BWF as Istora stadium, that knows it’s badminton pat, was left with jaws hanging. “No one in stadium will expect me to do flat service. I never practice those. I told Chirag, OK, I want to try. Because nobody will expect it. For sure, even if they watch videos, they won’t find me shooting it. They will find Chirag shooting it. I don’t have the feeling of doing short serve and catch next one… so I just tried,” he mused.

It was one perfect note, hit. It did the job against the Danes. “You have to take your chances. Satwik serve at 18-19 was phenomenal and even (mine) at 20-19, the way it went was quite good,” Chirag told BWF of one that caught the line and deflated the Danes. Chirag errors always are followed by 3 winners he takes it upon himself to compensate with. The last rally was scrappy, but Satwik scooped one that fell on the sideline at the back. In the quarters, they play Malaysians Man-Tee.

Satwik accepted the win was scrappy.

“Today we were not at our best…we only gave away points…15-20 points. They didn’t do anything. We made mistakes. I felt we were not focussed enough. We were not there today. But we kept on believing in one point at a time. Coach kept telling us to calm down. Relax. He said it’s OK if you lose also. We said let’s play our game. See how it goes. That’s why I pointed to coach (after win) to indicate, yes, we listened to you.”

Chirag admitted the win was laborious. “We were giving away way too many easy points. The ones we scored also, they gave us. Just because we were playing stupid – missed smashes, taps. There are these days when you have to somehow scrape the wins. Scratchy wins pull you ahead because when you are at your best there are high chances of you winning. But when you are not at your best and yet you are able to win that’s something we can take as a positive,” he said.