Commonwealth Games 2018: “We stand a chance to win a medal,” says Chirag Shetty

At the age of 20 when an athlete is expected to still sharpen the edges of his fledgling career, Chirag Shetty has already found a place in the top 20 of the world in men’s doubles. Along with the 17-year-old Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, the two are redefining the established and conventional norms of the sports world.

Chirag and Satwik are young, but are already very much wiser and far more mature than any other such youngster around. There is no frivolity of youth, no superciliousness after tasting initial success on the court. They are just two players extremely committed to their goal, eager to learn and rectify their mistakes all the time.

That attitude, along with a good dose of humility, has taken them places. When either of them talks, one realizes how unpretentious they actually are. They never let success get to their heads, and, at the same time, they do not back off from emphasizing how much confidence their recent good results have brought them.

Their brutal honesty is the very reason why the pair of Shetty and Rankireddy is a household name now. In just one year of playing the Superseries circuit, they reached the quarter-finals of two events and even qualified for the prestigious World Championships.

If anyone doubted them to be a one-season wonder, then they dispelled all those thoughts immediately by reaching the semi-finals of the Indonesia Masters in the very first month of 2018. Buoyed by that outing, they won a round in their All England Open debut, where they nearly upset the former champions Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen before going down to the Danes with a 21-23 score in the decider.

Satwik and Chirag are now genuine contenders in any event that they take part in. Most importantly, they are now making India watch doubles, which used to be in the shadow of singles so far.

Their recent exploits have naturally given them more belief in their abilities, which is exactly what they need before embarking on a medal quest at the Commonwealth Games 2018.

“The preparations have gone on well. We had a good tournament at the All England Open as well. Everything has been going on in the right direction,” says Chirag Shetty in an exclusive interaction with Sportskeeda.

“Going into the tournament, we are pretty much confident of coming back with a medal. If we play the way we have been playing the past 3-4 months, we definitely stand a chance to win a medal. Hopefully, we can get the gold as well if we can cause an upset,” says the 20-year-old with a remarkable candour.

Medal would be dream come true

It is widely known that the Mumbai-born Shetty looks up to Prakash Padukone. The lanky Shetty caught on the badminton bug after being fascinated by stories of Padukone’s triumphs that he heard from Uday Pawar, whose academy he joined at the age of 12. Pawar was a member of the 1986 Asian Games bronze medal-winning team and had played with the former World No. 1.

Shetty was inspired by Padukone’s discipline and dedication for his craft, that helped him plunge headlong into the shuttle sport.

It would thus mean the world to him should he get to bring the Commonwealth Games gold from Gold Coast, in the same way his idol did at the Edmonton Games in 1978.

“When I started off playing badminton, I never thought I would even play at this level,” Shetty says.

“Now entering this tournament and getting to win a medal would be a big dream come true for Satwik and me. If we play all the matches at the same level as we have done in the past few months, we stand a chance of even winning the gold,” he adds.

Wary of challenges

But Shetty also knows that the path to that much-coveted gold is fraught with dangers. He might have set his sights on that prized yellow metal, but his feet are firmly on the ground.

He is very much wary of the challenge that he and Satwik can face from Olympic medal-winning pairs in the draw.

“There is a good pair from Malaysia, who are the Olympic silver medallists and there is the Olympic bronze medallist pair from England as well. Those two, I would say, would be our toughest competitors -- Tan Wee Kiong and Goh V Shem, and Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge,” he cautions.

Unlucky against the Danes

In an earlier conversation, Satwik had expressed the need for mental training on being asked to share his thoughts about handling high-pressure situations. Satwik and Chirag’s duels with Boe and Mogensen are a fine example of why they might need it.

Despite lacking in experience, they have run the highly accomplished Danes ragged, with all three of their matches going the distance. This time they were mighty close and they nearly got their first win.

Shetty did acknowledge that they indeed need to be a lot calmer towards the end of such high-voltages matches, but at the same time he also pointed out how the new service law reared its ugly head to rob them of a priceless chance.

“We are still young and we lack the experience part of it. We have played Boe and Mogensen three times and every time it was very close. The first two times, I would say, we lost because they were much more experienced and they knew how to handle the pressure and took the win away from us.

“But this time, at the All England Open, we were much calmer and smarter but, in the end, it was just a matter of luck.

“In the first match as well as the one against Boe and Mogensen, I got suddenly faulted twice after 15-13. For the rest of the match, I was never faulted, neither in the first match against the Japanese.

“I had been serving from the same height. Boe and Mogensen too had been serving from the same height, but they were never getting faulted. So, we were a bit unlucky, I would say.

"We handled the pressure well this time and we are going into the right direction. Hopefully, we’ll be able to convert it into a win the next time," he hopes, before adding, "Frankly speaking, we need to be a bit more calm towards the end. Generally, our coach asks us to focus on the first 2-3 strokes but in the crucial stages, we tend to hurry up and make mistakes.”

Fallacy of the new service law

Shetty went on to elaborate how the controversial law has confused players and umpires alike. The new system, implemented by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) requires the whole of the shuttle not to exceed 1.15m from the ground at the time of release.

The attempt was to eradicate errors made by service judges and bring uniformity, but it has only invited the ire of the shuttlers. The standard of umpiring has shamefully fallen after it got introduced and players have been struggling ever since.

Underlining that the “umpires are a bit biased against the lower-ranked players,” Shetty vent out his frustration, asking the world body to reconsider their decision. The Mumbai shuttler even took the opportunity to explain what exactly plagued the system and how fallible it actually is.

“The rules that they have tried to implement, are not at all correct. They haven’t even tried and tested the system beforehand.

“They are two lines through which you can check if the service is correct or not. Those two lines intersect at a 4-5cm gap. So, they can’t even figure it out if it is a proper service or not. It’s better they reconsider the decision.

“There’s no uniformity in the rules and the umpires don’t even know when to apply the rules.”

Sacrificing mixed doubles

The superb understanding between them has been one of the reasons why they have flourished

Chirag is pretty serious about developing his and Satwik’s already flourishing partnership into something special. And he knows what measures he needs to take for it to happen. He had no qualms about the major decisions that he had to take for he totally realizes the tremendous potential that they have got.

Till even April of last year, he dabbled in both men’s and mixed doubles. After that, Satwik and Chirag had a frank conversation with the coach, Tan Kim Her. Even though the Malaysian wanted Chirag to pursue excellence in both the categories, Shetty was dead against it.

If both of them played in the two disciplines, they would be barred from producing their 100% as tiredness would inevitably creep in. Chirag faced this situation in the juniors and knew how much of a risk it would be if the two of them opted to keep on hunting medals in both.

The selfless Shetty sacrificed playing in mixed doubles for the sake of their men’s doubles success and let the younger Rankireddy continue in both. If the teenager ever felt fatigued, he knew he would always have Chirag’s back.

“We had a chat with the coach and he was keen on me playing mixed doubles. But I told him that if both of us play mixed doubles and either of us is tired, we’ll lose in our main event. I have had this situation in the juniors as well, so I didn’t want a repeat of that. If we are playing at the highest level, then the matches are going to be tough.

“So, playing two tough matches in a day is a bit difficult. We need to rest. Either me or Satwik could play both. Since Satwik is continuing to play mixed doubles, I had to skip."

Does juggling both duties get difficult for Rankireddy?

Shetty admits that his 17-year-old doubles partner is very fit and faces no problems in general. Despite that, if he ever feels the effects of his mixed doubles matches, then Shetty is always there to carry the burden, like the older brother that he is.

“Satwik has played four matches in a day as well, like, in Japan, we had to play qualifying rounds.

“When we used to play in the qualifiers, it used to be very difficult. Now it’s still okay, but we have to manage well. Generally, he is fit enough to play two events. Still if he is tired sometimes, I try to cover it for him as much as possible. I try to take the shuttle as much as possible and just get him that high lift so that he can smash it.”

They know how to divide the labour. They know when to make the sacrifices. They know when to attack and when to tone it down.

If Satwik and Chirag have soared this high, it is because they can depend on each other, just like how a pair should. It’s an unspoken and unbroken promise that they are there for each other whenever it is needed.

If they now say that they are shooting for a top-15 place by the end of the year, one has to believe them. If they have shown this much astute understanding at this age, then the sky is theirs to aim for.