Tokyo: Indonesia’s World No. 1 men’s doubles pair, Marcus Fernaldi Gideon/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo did not give their opponents, World No. 10 Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty too much breathing room in the second Group A match on Monday, spending only 32 minutes to defeat the Indian pair with a landslide score of 21-13, 21-12.
In the first Group A match which started around 11.20 am Tokyo time, World No. 3 Lee Yang/Wang Chi-Lin of Taiwan who suffered an upset defeat to Rankireddy/Shetty on Sunday, successfully redeemed themselves by beating World No. 18 Sean Vendy/Ben Lane of Great Britain 21-17, 21-14. The much-needed win also gave the Taiwanese pair a glimmer of hope in advancing to the next round. In order to earn a surviving chance to enter the quarter-final, Lee/Wang have no choice but to defeat Gideon/Sukamuljo in their last group match. Otherwise, if Rankireddy/Shetty beat Vendy/Lane, and Lee/Wang lost to Gideon/Sukamuljo, the Indian pair will make the quarter-finals together with Gideon/Sukamuljo.
“We just couldn’t find ways to beat them,” said Rankireddy after the match.
The World No. 2 Hendra Setiawan/Mohammad Ahsan of Indonesia didn’t face too much trouble to outlast World No. 9 Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik of Malaysia 21-16, 21-19 in a Group D match. If World No. 8 Choi Sol-Gyu/Seo Seung-Jae managed to see off Setiawan/Ahsan in their last group match on Tuesday, then, the situation will be tricky for Chia/Soh to advance to the quarter-finals. Believe it or not, Choi/Seo actually had a 3-1 head-to-head record against the World No. 2 pair from Indonesia. They played three times in 2021, and the Korean pair won 2 out of those three matches.
Chia/Soh would need to try to beat Jason Ho-Shue/Nyl Yakura of Canada on Tuesday, try to keep their opponents’ score below 10 points to have a better chance to make the quarter-finals.
Meanwhile, Hiroyuki Endo/Yuta Watanabe of Japan and Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen of Denmark from Group B; Takeshi Kamura/Keigo Sonoda and Li Junhui/Liu Yuchen of China from Group C had won two matches in their respective group and were eligible for the quarter-finals. They just need to play their last group match on Tuesday to determine the champions and runners-up of their groups.
