Satwik-Chirag handed easy draw for Paris

One of India’s biggest hopes for an Olympic medal in Paris, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty were on Monday handed a favourable draw for the quadrennial showpiece that will commence on July 26. Badminton competition starts the next day.

The world No.3 pair is seeded third based on the rankings on July 9, and is in Group C with Indonesia’s reigning All England champions Fajar Alfian/Muhammad Rian Ardianto (world No.6), German world No.31 Mark Lamsfuss/Marvin Seidel and French combine Ronan Labar/Lucas Corvee, the world No.46.

The top two pairs will qualify for the quarter-finals where a draw will be held to decide the line-up for the knockouts.

India’s reigning Asian Games gold medallists have a 3-2 record against the Indonesians, and significantly haven’t lost to Alfian and Ardianto since 2018, having won the last three contests. Against the Germans, Rankireddy and Shetty have a 1-0 record and are 2-0 head-to-head against the Frenchmen.

Rankireddy and Shetty have been in brilliant form this year, reaching four finals – Malaysia Open, India Open, French Open and Thailand Open – winning the latter two. They have an impressive 23-6 win-loss record in 2024.

The 2022 Commonwealth Games champions haven’t dropped out of the top three in the world this year, after twice being world No.1, from January-April and in May-June.

In Group A, world No.1 Liang Wei Keng/Wang Chang of China face Tokyo 2020 bronze medallists Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik of Malaysia, Ben Lane/Sean Vendy of Great Britain and Dong Adam/Nyl Yakura of Canada.

Reigning world champions Kang Min-hyuk/Seo Seung-jae of South Korea, the fourth seeds, are in Group B with France’s Christo Popov/Toma Jr Popov, Thais Supak Jomkoh/Kittinupong Kedren and Czechs Ondrej Kral/Adam Mendrek.

Group D has five pairs, including reigning Olympic champions Lee Yang/Wang Chi-Lin of Chinese Taipei and World Championships silver medallists Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen of Denmark, who are seeded second. The other three pairs are China’s Liu Yu Chen/Ou Xuan Yi, 2021 world champions Takuro Hoki/Yugo Kobayashi of Japan and Americans Vinson Chiu/Joshua Yuan.

The men’s doubles draw had been postponed on Friday when the draw for the other four categories were announced. This was due to a Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) hearing of two French pairs following which Labar/Corvee were included in the men’s doubles draw, expanded to 17 pairs from the original 16.

The CAS ruling ordered BWF, the world body for the sport, to recommend to International Olympic Committee (IOC) that Corvee/Labar be included. As a result, there are three groups of four pairs and one of five.

Indian badminton has delivered medals in the last three Olympics with Saina Nehwal winning bronze in London 2012 and PV Sindhu bringing home silver and bronze in Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 respectively.