NEW DELHI, Mar 11
There are fewer things more entertaining in sport than compulsively winning. Badminton’s Boe-ball that Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty dish out routinely, puts a lot of store on winning every point, turning every shot into a dart aiming for bullseye. Their bravado and the bashfulness, the derring-do and the defense, the no-holds-barred smash, and the tightly concealed deception are all geared towards this unsatiated pursuit of winningness.
Three finals might be lost on the trot, in the process. And an Olympic gold might get won on a canter someday. But in the here and the now and today of this moment, Satwik-Chirag, shepherded by coach Mathias Boe, have won once again. The French Open was pocketed without dropping a set, and the final opponents happened to be Taiwanese Lee Jhe-Huei and Yang Po-Hsuan, who were tamed 21-11, 21-17. “Feels good. But next week there’s another tournament,” Chirag Shetty would casually tell the BWF after picking their second French crown, a Super 750 at the Olympic venue. Birmingham – the said next tournament – tends to make Indians a little jumpy, a tad sentimental because it’s the All England. But for Satwik-Chirag, it might be as simply zoomed and zoned in as the next tournament to be won. Or at least Boe-ball would steer them into thinking that way.
This week in Paris has seen Satwik-Chirag in a slightly different mode. They won Korea last season on fast courts, playing all-out aggressive attack – the conventional zipping down smashes.
In Paris, the conditions wavered from one day to the next.
But the Indians merely attacked in different ways, even if the shuttle wasn’t raining down on the Taiwanese from altitude. First, there were the attacking openings, that Boe calls ‘the service situation’. Historically a defensive shot in badminton, though doubles players always loved to give it a zing, Satwik-Chirag have in their repertoire some dozen variations of the serve.
Chirag barely swivels, yet both him and Satwik caught Yang-Lee unawares so many times on the return, that the Taiwanese were actually pressured into trying funny things when serving and crumbling into many service errors themselves just to keep up.
Boe insists on aggressive first three shots of an exchange, and the Indians kept the pressure up, even as they ran away with a 14-6 lead in the opener. Yang-Lee hit hard, and Satwik later chuckled about how he wondered how opponents felt “when facing Chirag-Satwik.” But the Indian defense stayed sturdy. Chirag has even perfected a high, heavy lift from a deeply defensive position which bought Indians time as well as points, because it threw the opponents out of position, with some cute harakiri incited along the backline.
Then there’s the aggressive Chirag push which he first played at 6-4. The power and speed make it an attacking weapon, but it’s the deception that really sets up the winner. His arm is poised to turn the shuttle right, but his wrist twirls it to the left, and Satwik would finish with a kill into the open space.
Perhaps the sharpest attacks of the day, from Satwik, Chirag and Yang as well were the slantways low altitude smashes. Yang for most part, and Lee once in the second when the Taiwanese led 9-8, pulled the mid-length shuttles from the sides and directed it at angles, coming sharply into opponents. Mostly, the target was bringing it across into Satwik’s body and testing his awkward angle defense.
They succeeded too. But mostly, it was the two Indians with criss-cross attack, and sharp flatter smashes at high speed that got the Indians a bunch of points including at 21-11.
Chirag’s other gems were his fluid maneuvering from below the tape and the speed of his reflexes truly boggled Yang-Lee. Satwik meanwhile served deftly, wasn’t shabby at the low defense, and was lightning quick at the net.
There was a classic S-C 1-2, first Satwik smashed right down the middle, then Chirag got a whistling word in, leaping right behind him at 8-7. And to spice things up, the chair umpire declared one return a double hit, which riled Boe, and uncoiled Chirag mightily, after which the slantways attacks never stopped pricking like a pierced voodoo doll.
From leading 11-10 to 14-14, amidst l’affaire ‘double hit’, both Lee and Yang had multiple service errors – into the net, and the flick serve ballooning long. At 15-14, the Indian attack decided to turn ruthless. And the Taiwanese hopes were stubbed into the ash tray. At 17-14, Satwik had had enough of the polite edgewise attack. So he buried a smash right down the middle.
No one is losing sight of the Olympics gold, which Satwik-Chirag realistically can nail down. But Boe-ball dictates that a few more titles are also won with five months to go before Paris. “We thought we won’t think much. Just be happy and have fun and let them earn the points and the match,” Satwik said. He had no intentions of letting them anywhere near a win though. Some athletes like winning to be a habit. Some like Satwik-Chirag make it a complete habitat of their existence. Fun is had along the way.
