The Indian men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty suffered a straight game loss to world No 1 Marcus Gideon Fernaldi and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo of Indonesia in their second Group A match at the Olympics on Monday.
The world No 10 Indian duo could never get into any kind of rhythm and lost 13-21 12-21 in 32 minutes against the top seeded team. It was their ninth defeat to the Indonesian pair in as many meetings.
Sukamuljo and Gideon are now at the top of the group, while Satwik and Chirag are on the second spot. The Indians will still need to beat England’s Ben Lane and Sean Vendy, who had also suffered a defeat against the famed Indonesians.
World No 3 Chinese Taipei pair of Lee Yang and Wang Chi-Lin, the fourth team in Group A, also notched up a win against the English duo earlier in the day to stay in contention. But because the Indians beat them, they have to now hope for Lane-Vendy to defeat the Indians.
The advantage for Satwik-Chirag is…