India’s top doubles duo of Satwik Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty had to work hard during their opening match against French pair Lucas Corvee and Ronan Labar at the Stade de Roland Garros arena in Paris on Saturday. The former world no. 1 Indians didn’t have the best of starts and made some errors which allowed their opponents to make it a close contest. However, Satwik and Chirag’s experience and skill helped them recover to win the match 21-17, 21-14 in straight games.
Young singles shuttler Lakshya Sen also began his Paris Olympics campaign with a victory in his men’s singles group match against Kevin Cordon of Guatemala. Sen took the opening game comfortably by 21-8 but was tested in the second which went down to the wire. Cordon threatened to cause an upset as he surged ahead to 20-16 at one point. But Senshowed immense grit and fought back to take the next six points and win 22-20 to complete a 21-8, 22-20 win in his opening match.
In other results on the first day, one of Sen’s rivals Jonatan Christie of Indonesia defeated Italy’s Julien Carraggi 18-21, 21-11, 21-16 in his opening men’s singles match. The Indian shuttlers will hope to carry forward the momentum when they take on their next opponents at the Olympics in the coming days.
