All England Open: Satwik and Chirag’s defeat in round of 16 a reminder of how competitive men’s doubles badminton is, there are no guarantees | Badminton News

When last week Marcus Fernaldi Gideon announced his retirement, the tributes inevitably were centered around the domination that he and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo had on badminton’s BWF World Tour. The duo – known popularly around the world as ‘Minions’ – were an absolute men’s doubles tour de force. In what will go down as one of the greatest statical anomalies in badminton, they somehow never managed to win an Olympics or World Championships medal (leave alone title) but on the circuit, they were incredibly consent. They spent an astonishing 226 weeks at the top of the world rankings from 2017 to 2022.
On 20 September 2022, Gideon and Sukamuljo were world No 2 for the first time since 2017 as Japan’s Takuro Hoki/Yugo Kobayashi – world champions in 2021 – took over. Since then alone, there have been five changes at the top of the world rankings in men’s doubles.
In the week following the retirement of Gideon, the All England Open 2024 badminton championships has thrown up a timely reminder of just how wide open and competitive men’s doubles has been in the last couple of years. The current world No 1, India’s Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty were defeated in the round of 16 at the prestigious Super 1000 tournament late on Thursday night. It marked their first pre-final defeat on the World Tour in 2024.
SatChi’s defeat came following first-round exits for reigning World Champions Kang Min Hyuk / Seo Seung Jae, and former champions Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan (albeit not the force they once were). Then there were second-round ousters for recent world No 1 Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang, and last year’s Worlds silver medalls Kim Astrup and Anders Rasmussen.
And despite these glut of high profile early defeats in Birmingham, it is not like the quarterfinal lineup is a weak one. Satwik-Chirag themselves lost to 2022 champions Bagas Maulana and Muhammad Shohibul Fikri. Liang and Wang were defeated reigning Olympic champions Wang Chi-lin and Lee Yang, who are an enigma themselves. Two recent world champions in Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik and Hoki-Kobayashi are still around as are another recent world No 1s Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto. Any of these pairs could go on to win the title, and you wouldn’t bat an eyelid.
In many ways, this week at All England has also highlighted that Satwik-Chirag’s sensational start to 2024 has been a complete outlier to what we have come to expect in this category as they made it three finals back to back.
In 2018 and 2019, the Minions won eight titles each on the World Tour. In 2023, for instance, two pairs won four titles each, while two other pairs won three titles as the trophies started getting spread around. In such a rollercoaster environment, that Satwik-Chirag reached the finals in Malaysia, India and France was a remarkable feat of consency.
Men’s doubles on the court is often chaotic: fast and furious exchanges, flat rallies, short points dominated how the first few shots – the service, the return and the third shot – pan out. In the last two years, the fortunes off the court have been similar too, changing swiftly from one week to next.
The world was looking at the French Open Super 750 last week at the Olympic venue as a possible pointer towards what might happen in Paris in a few months from now. Then Chinese Taipei’s Lee Jhe Huei-Yang Po Hsuan made their way to the men’s doubles final, a pair that is not even on the radar for qualification for now but managed to pull off one big upset after another.
All England is a title that Satwik-Chirag have long coveted, as have many Indian stars in the last decade. The wait continues for now, but their defeat also offers a moment to pause and reflect on how there are no guarantees in the wild, wild world of men’s doubles. On their day, the Indians can beat anyone in the world right now, they don’t have any nemeses around (with the Minions now officially retired). But they sure do know the same applies against them as well.