Chia-Soh bag first-ever Gold Medal for Malaysia, Satwik-Chirag clinch Bronze for India
Malaysia’s first ever doubles title came on Sunday in Tokyo where the BWF Championships was held. The men’s doubles final saw Malaysia’s Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik emerge victorious over Indonesian legends Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan to clinch the country’s first ever gold medal at the Badminton World Championships, which was the tournament’s 27th edition.
Even before this, Malaysia have produced a number of Badminton Titans who have not got the coveted Gold medal in their grasp. The pairing of Chia-Soh rewrote the history books by becoming the first pair ever to win against Ahsan-Setiawan as a pair in this event’s history.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty clinched the bronze medal and got the high honors by becoming the first Indian duo to win a men’s doubles medal at the World championships. They had lost to champion paring of Chia-Soh in three games on Saturday.
“It is unfortunate to always be unlucky all the time in crucial stages. There were too many string outs and lucky net chords in crucial times, which is really irritating,” Satwik said after the semi-final loss.
“We are a bit disappointed. It was quite close and could have gone either way but I guess a few points here and there and luck was also not on our side. All credit to them, they played a solid game,” Chirag said.
The big final match saw Ahsan-Setiawan get a huge lead in the first game at 18-12. But the Malaysians pulled off a superb recovery to take the game at 21-19. The second game was even more at ease as the Indonesians struggled a bit towards the end due to fatigue. It was emotional when they got to the victory as Soh-Chia swept the match in just 2 games 21-19, 21-14 which ended very quickly in just over half an hour.
