India's Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy's winning run came to an end after they lost in the men's doubles semifinal at the ongoing Toyota Thailand Open, a BWF World Tour Super 1000 event, in Bangkok on Saturday. Satwiksairaj and Chirag, currently ranked 10th in the world, lost to World No. 9 Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik of Malaysia 18-21, 18-21. The match lasted 35 minutes.
Rankireddy and his partner, Ashwini Ponnappa, also suffered a loss in the mixed doubles semifinals to top seeds Dechapol Puavaranukroh and Sapsiree Taerattanachai of Thailand. Rankireddy and Ponnappa lost 20-22, 21-18, 12-21 in a match spanning 59 minutes. Rankireddy and Ponnappa have now lost each of their three career meetings against the Thai pair.
The unseeded Indian pair, on Friday, had stunned fifth seeds Chan Peng Soon and Goh Liu Ying in a hard-fought three-game contest - becoming the first Indian doubles pair to reach the semis of a World Tour 1000 event.
With their loss, Rankireddy and Shetty failed to repeat their title-winning feat at the tournament from 2019. They had stunned the then reigning world champions Li Jun Hui and Liu Yu Chen of China to win 21-19, 18-21, 21-18, to become the first Indian doubles pair to win the tournament - which was then a World Tour 500 event.
This was their second loss against the eighth seeds in two career meetings so far. Previously, they faced each other at the Tata Open India International Challenge in 2017, where they lost to the Malaysian duo 21-11, 17-21, 10-21 in the quarterfinals.
The Malaysians will now take on World No. 7, and sixth seeds, Lee Yang and Wang Chi-Lin of Chinese Taipei in the final. Lee and Wang won the Yonex Thailand Open last week and are in a rich vein of form currently.