Paris Olympics: How Satwik-Chirag were outdone by Malaysians’s ploy to poke their old weakness of return of serve

Like a dry martini of decreased sweetness, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, a teetotaller, tasted defeat at the Paris Olympics, alongside buddy Chirag Shetty. It wasn’t very French, but this bitter will be nursed for years to come, as they return home without a medal they wanted too desperately, and too dearly.

Disappointment of the deja’vu kinds, can draw out dry laughs. Satwik’s was incredulous rather than sardonic. For right after losing to Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik of Malaysia in the quarterfinals, Satwik’s mind went back to 8 straight prior losses against the same pairing. It was a sorry streak they thought they had left behind – having beaten Aaron-Soh thrice thereafter, winning Asian Games, Thomas Cup and reaching World No 1. Apparently, life had come a long way to loop right back to when they were the Malaysians’ bunnies.

“We had started really good. We were in comfortable position. In defense also. But then (here he laughed) we were back again to 8-0 when we were losing to them. The same game came up poking us in first 1,2,3 strokes,” he explained. Aaron and Soh’s pokes turned into a giant stab at the Olympics as they lost 21-13, 14-21, 16-21.

#SatChi gave it their all, but alas couldn't go through 🥺 🥲

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Good serving combinations, the Chinese, Danes and Koreans had troubled the Indian duo in the lead up. Aaron Chia has a wicked range on service variations, he’s an absolute master of those, and frankly the Indians who lost three finals in the last 8 months, hadn’t found their receiving counter, the defense against this wonderfully dark art. They even won the opening set as a soaring Chirag Shetty attacked admirably.

Then the pokes came, and the bitter joke was on the Indians.

Through the first set, both Satwik and Chirag had kept Aaron quiet and pegged him back, depriving him of his favoured net-play as his errors piled up. Attacking the stronger link (he’s still tricky but trimmed quite a bit, and moving quickly), was audacious. It even worked. Until it didn’t. The most underrated player of the four, Soh Wooi Yik came to the party, while Aaron rediscovered his spritz.

Not only did Soh serve equally lethally, the Malaysians pounced on India’s hesitant and naive guileless 2nd shot returns with a flourish. “If the rally came up, we scored lot of points. The 1,2,3,4 strokes is a good lesson for us to focus on, when we go back. If we played 5th stroke, we were getting the point. But 4 strokes we need to play very consistent. Close to the end they played a mental game, they were more steady compared to us,” Satwik would threadbare candidly.

You did your best SAT-CHI ♥

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Not only did Aaron-Soh pounce on the Satwik defensive return, but they successfully managed to deny Chirag any control at whizzing across the net to play his steep down shots. Kept away from a regular dose of attack, Chirag’s nerves began acting up, and it was 2021-22 all over again, when hurried, rushed, jittery jab of returns would see their game come undone. This game had been perfected by Indonesians Kevin-Marcus, and the Malaysians just took it forward with Aaron’s outrageous net skill.

Pinned in defensive traps of fast, flat-exchanges where Aaron-Soh barely lifted the shuttle to give Indians a vantage to smash from, Satwik-Chirag panicked. They couldn’t squeeze their aerial attacks in, and Soh Wooi Yik kept it short and snappy. The average rally length was 4 shots through the match, so the 5th where the Indians could smash it down, rarely fetched up.

Getting drawn into the flat-game trap doomed them, but the Malaysians weren’t exactly leaving them with a choice, imposing their pace on every rally and putting immense pressure on low defense.

Satwik 𝐦𝐚𝐚𝐫 raha hai💥

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Chirag was still processing the loss, when he said, “Ummm ya. Sort of we let them back into the game. At 4-0 in second we were quite comfortable. Should have led till the mid game interval. But it became back and forth, back and forth. So they kept poking us. In the third they led 5-2, but we got back. Didn’t let them take that lead away from us. It was even till 14-11. But they kept poking us. We should’ve been a little more calmer. We gave away too many easy points, he said.

On Heartbreak boulevard, this would rank high. Satwik said, “Big heart break. We had similar heart breaks. We are used to that. But I mean..I wanted to do well for our coach as well. It’s on the back of our mind that he worked harder than us. He kept his whole planning and adjusting with things back home, (and advised) smart moves of how to deal with my body. It was never easy. Lucky to have him. Felt very positive coming onto court. Felt it’s our day. When we won bronze (Kusale bronze) in the morning we were really positive thinking it’s our day. So started really good.”

Then just like that, it ended very badly.

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