Malaysia Open: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty stumble onto Korean lefty heavyweight in loss | Badminton News

Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty find themselves in a flux that’s occurred but never quite made headlines: missing making finals at All England, World Championship and the ultimate coup de grace, the Olympics. The lessons for 2025 are straightforward: soak up losses, not panic, but not be deluded that everything will fall into place immediately. It’s literally starting from scratch, with coach Tan Kim Her.
The semis loss at Malaysia Super 1000 was still early days, against Korean Seo Seung-jae and Kim Won-ho. A final and semis appearance in the two tournaments on their return from a five-month break, when they are clearly very off-the-boil, points to their calibre. But the 21-10, 21-15 flattening, in 40 minutes, might be their shortest loss, their briefest fight in other words. And Satwik knew he could cop a part of the blame. “We were prepared but they played really well. I should’ve followed a bit of the game plan, but I played random strokes,” he would tell BWF.
It would be naive to believe that the Indians got uncharacterically thrashed solely because they were off their normal levels. For Seo Seung-jae, easily the finest Men’s Doubles player of the generation, was prancing right in front of them, and looking strangely happy too. Even in his sulky modes, he’s quite a handful for opponents with his southpaw surgical game. But having a gala time with new partner Kim Won-ho, the newly-rustled-up pairing left the Indians utterly bewildered with their game. Satwik would read it perfectly: “They both are playing like mixed doubles now. It’s getting tougher. They don’t give easy points, that’s their best quality. And we have to work hard for every point. We were working very hard and they were taking very easy points. So there was no pressure on them.”
The ‘mixed doubles game’ is a straight up ungrudging compliment. Seung-jae is the 2023 World Champion in men’s doubles, but also in mixed. Won-ho is the Olympic silver medall in mixed from Paris. It would suffice to say that Korea is the land of Lee Yong-dae, one of the most creative mixed doubles players to ever walk the court. But Seung-jae, despite missing an Olympic medal, takes the skill-set higher, with his left-handed angles and tremendous foot speed.
Unlike traditional men’s doubles – slam bang and mono-chromed at any rate – mixed doubles takes into account that women won’t settle for humdrum monotony of either fast flat exchanges or smash-fests. They open up the game much more, and both Koreans carry the creative fervour and flexibility into their men’s doubles gig. To add to that, Kuala Lumpur courts at Axiata have been deadly slow, completely neutralizing the Indian attacking game.

Semifinals contest as Rankireddy/Shetty 🇮🇳 put in the work against Kim/Seo 🇰🇷.#BWFWorldTour #MalaysiaOpen2025 pic.twitter.com/NPnkffUur9
— BWF (@bwfmedia) January 11, 2025
As such the Indians did well to reach semis. But they will need to counter Korean sorcery on slow shuttle days.
Satwik-Chirag picked the first few points, but as early as 4-4, the Koreans were running rings around them. Famous commentator Gillian Clarke had just about settled into declaring that Kim Won-ho was manning the front court as designated net player, when Seung-jae made her guffaw that she was having a rethink. Truth was Koreans, with the expanse that great defensive qualities and their right-left combination gives them in covering the court, and their speed, simply follow no pattern. Thinking on their feet, like mixed doubles is accustomed to, they go searching for gaps on court and have the skills to place the shuttle there, without designated roles.
Indians looking to be versatile
It’s the sort of versatility Indians are trying to imbibe too, which saw Satwik cut across to the front court early in the rally – something that Chirag does, though he stayed back to allow his partner time to find his footing. The understanding was there, but the repetition drills that perfect this choreography of movements and strokes to go with it, wasn’t. Hence, Satwik’s mea culpa on “random strokes.”
The Koreans pretty much broke away at 5-5 and had the opener wrapped up with Seung-jae being everything everywhere all at once, to riff off Malaysia’s greatest action heroine, the Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh. Seung-jae’s speed in deception as he buzzes around the court is a wondrous wheel within a wheel of strokeplay. Not only did the Koreans guard every inch of court defensively, but they made the other half of the court appear bigger and unguardable for the tall Indians.
In the second, the Indians started calmly and had a semblance of a gameplan going. But the only difference was the Koreans ‘at will’ broke away at 12-12, and cruised to the win. Unable to dictate either pace or patterns, and with slow courts taking the sting out of their game, the Indians got a few points in with body-attacks.
It’s what prompted Satwik to say, “My game didn’t work. We thought if we stayed calm it would work. But maybe we should’ve shown some attitude on court. Played with a little more fire.”
Chirag also pointed out that the Koreans won the serve-battle. “We started being a little bit calmer from the second. Right from the first point. But credit to them. We gave a few easy points from 11-8. But they were serving quite well,” he told BWF. Former coach Mathias Boe set a lot of store on the first three strokes and wrestling control, but the Korean serve is a mystery-box and the Indians were too frazzled Seung-jae’s overall brilliance to be in any position to counter snappily.
Satwik-Chirag next play in Delhi, where they start against fellow losing semi-finals Man Wei Chong and Kai Wun Tee, of Malaysia in Round 1. Man-Tee lost a decider 24-26 against Chinese Liu-Chen at Axiata on Saturday, so life’s not about to get easy or comforting at home for Satwik-Chirag. Knowing they’re some way off from ideal, is half the battle covered.

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