Are Doubles Dominating Indian Badminton?

It was a setback for India when the nation's ace doubles player Satwiksairaj Rankireddy had pulled out of the Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championships 2023. Ranked as World No. 6 along with his partner Chirag Shetty, they have been significant in India’s growing influence in badminton doubles.

 

However, Chirag getting paired up with another budding doubles player Dhruv Kapila has proved instrumental in India winning a bronze medal at the Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championships 2023 ahead of the Sudirman Cup, scheduled in May. Apart from them, the women's doubles pairing of Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand had major contribution in crucial stages.

With this historic medal, it has become clear that India has more scope to win medals in doubles rather than in singles. It is because there have been no remarkable wins in singles except for PV Sindhu on the global stage.

 

Apart from Satwik-Chirag, world no. 24 Dhruv Kapila & M.R. Arjun has been India’s second reliable option in men’s doubles. Meanwhile, speaking women's doubles Treesa Jolly, Gayatri Gopichand won the Odisha Open Super 100, securing a third-place finish in the All England Open and fourth place in CWG.

The rise of Indian doubles pair is such that it has also imapcted the BWF rankings as seven Indian pairings finding place in the Top 50 across three categories, compared to 11 in two singles categories. And if one sees the jounrey of singles as well as doubles, in the knockouts on the World Tour, Indian doubles specialists are more successful than their singles peers. Last season, six pairs in doubles reached the quarterfinals, at least once compared to three players in singles.

When World number 9 HS Prannoy was stunned by World number 116 Lei Lan Xi and PV Sindhu who struggled to gain win against the Chinese players, it was shocking that led to India decreasing the chances of playing in the finals. However, in such crucial times, the young and inexperienced talents, defeated the mighty China.

One of the other impressive aspect was women’s doubles pairing of Treesa and Gayatri, the world no. 19, who were was winless against world no. 5 Pearly Tan-Thinaah Muralitharan until last week. However, they came triumphant against the Malaysians, and that too in straight games (23-21, 21-15).

Apart from this, the two remained unbeaten in the tournament as India secured a historic third-place finish in the continental Championships. Similarly, Dhruv Kapila, who came into the squad as a last-minute replacement for Satwik, showed his class despite not having enough pairing sessions with Chirag Shetty.

This pair, which was supposed to be India’s setback in the Championships, won two back-to-back matches, including the one in the semifinals in straight games (21-19, 21-19) against a skilful He Jiting-Zhou Haodong that helped India restore parity at 2-2 against China.

In the end, these Indian doubles players displaying grit and determination forced China to play all five matches to earn a victory.

If only one of the singles match would have emerged as victorious, China would have been out of the championships and sealed its place in the final. The fact is that Prannoy and Sindhu losing to two of China’s out of 100 singles players early in the tie came as a big blow to India.

 

Speaking of the positives, India went into the tournament as an unseeded unit but secured a third place in the tournament for the first time. It beat fourth-seeded Malaysia to top its group and Hong Kong in the quarterfinals, As the Sudirman Cup is just a few months away, this inspiring showing in Dubai will drive India to ace a tougher test in May.