Indonesia Open 2023: Satwik-Chirag enter first-ever World Tour Super 1000 Final; Prannoy bows out

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India's top men's doubles duo Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty continued their dominating form and stormed into the finals of the Indonesia Open for the first time.

The Asian Champions defeated South Korea's Kang Min Hyuk/Seo Seung Jae 17-21, 21-19, 21-18 in the semi-finals on Saturday (June 17). This is their first final appearance at a BWF World Tour Super 1000 event as well.

Satwik-Chirag - the current world no. 6 - lost the first game 17-21 but came back strongly to win the next two games on the trot to defeat Kang-Seo - who are ranked number 12 in BWF World Rankings. The semi-final match lasted for 67 minutes.

The Indian pair will now take on the winner between Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik of Malaysia (world no. 3) and Pramudya Kusumawardana/Yeremia Rambitan of Indonesia (world no. 25).

Earlier on Friday, defeated the world no. 1 home-favourite men's doubles duo of Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto of Indonesia 21-13, 21-13 in the quarterfinals to enter last-4. The quarterfinal match lasted for just 41 minutes. They will be up against reigning world champions Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik of Malaysia in the summit clash on Sunday (June 18).

"We feel really good the way we played today. They made a comeback in the third game but we stuck till the end and I am happy that we didn't run away from our tactics. We stuck to it till the very end. First time we are in a Super 1000 final and so it feels good," Chirag said after the win.

HS Prannoy beaten by Viktor Axelsen

Later in the day, Malaysia Masters champion HS Prannoy was outclassed by top seed Viktor Axelsen of Denmark in the men's singles semi-final. The Indian shuttler was not in his element against the top-seed Danish and lost the match by 21-15, 21-15.

In the match which lasted for 46 minutes, the seventh-seeded Indian couldn't take an early lead and always seemed doing the catch-up work against the world number 17 - who is making his comeback after an injury layoff.

In the quarter-final, Prannoy defeated Japan's Kodai Naraoka via straight games to reach the men's singles semifinal. The Indian defeated the third-seeded Japanese shuttler 21-18, 21-16 in the last 8 match that lasted for 55 minutes.