Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty lose French Open final, settle for silver
Paris: The Indian men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty finished second best after losing the finals in straight games against top seeds Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo of Indonesia at the French Open Super 750 here Sunday.
The Indian duo suffered a 18-21 16-21 loss to Marcus and Kevin, who are enjoying their 121st week as world no 1. Satwik and Chirag had come into the match with a 0-6 head-to-head record against the Indonesian pair.
Satwik and Chirag, who had won their maiden Super 500 title at the Thailand Open in August, looked a bit nervy in the 35-minute final.
Despite the loss, the duo's effort is commendable as this is the first time an Indian men's doubles pair has reached a World Tour 750 final.
Partho Ganguli and Vikram Singh were the last all-Indian pair to win the French Open in 1983.
In singles, Kidambi Srikanth had won the men's title in 2017, while Saina Nehwal was the only other Indian to make it to the women's final in 2012.
Satwik and Chirag looked rusty in the match and didn't have a good start as the world no 1 Indonesian pair moved to a huge 7-1 lead. The Indian duo showed the stomach to fight, clawing their way back at 17-17 with some clever play from Satwik and equally supported by Chirag.
However, the Indonesians soon grabbed three game points. The Indians saved one but lost the next to hand over the game to the Indonesians.
In the second game, the Indians fell back a bit before levelling the scores at 6-6 with Satwik winning a video referral.
The two pairs moved together till 10-10 before the Indians netted one as Marcus and Kevin went into the break with a slender one-point advantage.
Marcus and Kevin then broke off at 12-12 and gathered some quick points to move to 18-13 by putting continuous pressure on the Indians. The Indonesian duo soon grabbed four match points and sealed their seventh title of the year after Satwik hit out.
The World No. 11 Indian pair had an impressive week as they shocked reigning world champions Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan, before scripting stunning wins over World No. 8 Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen and World No. 6 Hiroyuki Endo and Yuta Watanabe.
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Sharad Pawar praised RSS after seeing how it burst fake narrative balloon of LS polls: Fadnavis
Nagpur, Jan 10: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday said NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar praised the RSS after realising how the outfit managed to overcome the fake narrative spread by the opposition in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The opposition had claimed BJP wanted to win 400 seats to change the Constitution and end reservations, a narrative which BJP leaders later claimed hit the party hard.
On Pawar praising the RSS recently, the CM said the MVA was successful in creating a fake narrative during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
"When assembly polls were approaching, many people from diverse fields who are inspired by the RSS played their role and burst the balloon of this fake narrative. Sharad Pawar saheb is very intelligent. He would have certainly studied this aspect. He realised that this (RSS) is not a regular political power but a nationalist power. In any competition it is good to praise others," he added.
That is why Pawar may have praised the RSS, Fadnavis said.
Speaking at an interaction with senior editor Vivek Ghalsasi at Late Vilasji Fadnis Jivhala programme here, Fadnavis also said he had asked for organisational work when Eknath Shinde was made chief minister in June 2022, but senior leaders asked him to join the government.
He also said Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked him not to behave like an extra-constitutional authority in the government.
He said the decision to become deputy chief minister on the command of the party leadership earned him a lot of praise from the cadre.
After the massive mandate the ruling alliance received in the 2024 assembly polls, Fadnavis said people and party workers would not have been happy if the CM was not from the BJP.
Shinde himself agreed within minutes that the CM must be from the BJP, which itself got 132 seats and was close to a majority of its own in the 288-member assembly, he added.
On Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray meeting him during the winter sessions of the legislature in Nagpur, Fadnavis said he had announced he would not indulge in politics of revenge after becoming CM and all leaders responded positively to it.
On chances of the NCP (SP) and NCP coming closer or reuniting, Fadnavis said, "If you see the developments that took place from 2019 to 2024, I realised never say never and anything can happen. Uddhav Thackeray goes to some other party and Ajit Pawar comes to us. In politics anything can happen though I am not saying this should happen."
He praised BJP leader Arun Gujarati from whom he learnt patience, which he claimed was an important quality in politics along with the ability to take criticism.
In a lighter vein, he said, "I only get angry when I am hungry. If you see me angry then give me something to eat and my anger will go away."
