Badminton: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty win headlines strong opening day for India at Hong Kong Super 500
Satwig-Chirag lead India’s charge at Hong Kong Open
After an excellent run to clinch the bronze medal at the BWF World Championships in Paris last month, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have carried their form into the Super 500 Hong Kong Open 2025 in Kowloon this week.
The top-ranked Indian pair (world number nine) were drawn against 17th-ranked Chiu Hsiang Chieh and Wang Chi-Lin in the opening round, and managed to see off the Chinese Taipei duo in just under an hour.
While Satwig-Chirag were the clear favourites ahead of the match according to all the best betting sites in India, Hsiang and Chieh held their own and forced a deciding set, but the Indian star duo asserted their dominance in the final set and claimed the win 21-13, 18-21, 21-10.
The victory moves Satwig and Chirag into the round of 16, where they will meet either Kenya Mitsuhashi & Hiroki Okamura of Japan or the Thailand duo of Peeratchai Sukphun & Pakkapon Teeraratsakul on Wednesday afternoon.
India have one women’s doubles team at the competition this year in Rutaparna Panda and Swetaparna Panda, while in the mixed doubles the nation will be represented by Dhruv Kapila/ Tanisha Crasto and Rohan Kapoor/ Ruthvika Gadde.
Kiran George joins Prannoy, Sen, PV Sindhu in single draw
Of the Indian badminton players who featured in the singles qualifiers, Kiran George was the standout performer, as he managed to book his place in the main draw by beating compatriot Sankar Subramaniam and Malaysia’s Cheam June Wei.
George will join India’s top-ranked singles players, Lakshya Sen and HS Prannoy, along with rising star Ayush Shetty, in the men’s singles event, and he will take on Singapore shuttler Jason Heng in the first round proper.
Notably, George is the only Indian men’s player drawn in the top half section 1 of the 2025 Hong Kong Open draw, while Sen, Prannoy and Shetty have all been drawn in section 2, meaning only one of them will be able to get beyond the quarter-final.
In the women’s singles event, India’s hopes will be pinned on Olympic medalist PV Sindhu, who will face Danish shuttler Line Christophersen in the first round on Wednesday. Anupama Upadhyaya and Rakshitha Ramraj are India’s other representatives in the competition.
