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India’s main draw challenge at the Indonesia Masters 2018 got off to a smashing start as the top men’s doubles pair from the country caused a huge upset at this BWF World Tour Super 500 tournament held in Jakarta, Indonesia on Wednesday. Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty pulled off a stunning 21-15, 21-17 win over the eighth seeds and World No. 10 duo of Takuto Inoue and Yuki Kaneko of Japan in a first round match that lasted just 35 minutes.
Considering the fact that Inoue and Kaneko reached the finals of the Japan Open, the Dutch Open and the China Masters besides winning the US Open and the Austrian Open, this was a big achievement for the former Indian national champions.
Rankireddy and Shetty, who are currently placed at 32nd in the world rankings, will next meet the winner of the first round clash between the 19th ranked pair of Liao Min Chun-Su Ching Heng and qualifiers Akbar Bintang Cahyono-Moh Reza Pahlevi Isfahani.
Rankireddy and Shetty have had a sensational debut on the Superseries circuit last year when they made it to the quarter-finals of two events. The two even nearly upset the World No. 2 pair of Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen in the quarter-finals of the French Open.
Rankireddy’s powerful smashes and Shetty’s terrific net control make them a potent team and today’s result just showed that they are in the right direction.
Sameer crashes out
However, India’s Sameer Verma was not as lucky. The World No. 30, who won the Syed Modi International in 2017, crashed out in the first round with a 16-21, 21-12, 10-21 loss to Japan’s 21st ranked Kazumasa Sakai. The latter was the runner-up to Kidambi Srikanth at the Indonesia Open Superseries Premier last year.
Later in the day, Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu, Parupalli Kashyap and the men’s doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy will be in action.
