Satwiksairaj and Chirag, right, in action against Malaysia’s Kang Khai Xing and Aaron Tai during their men’s doubles round of 32 match on day two of the All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham, England, Wednesday March 4, 2026.
| Photo Credit: AP
A title after two years and a handful of early exits, coupled with injury pullouts, sum up the year Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have had so far in 2026. No wonder then that the two-time World Championships medalists and World No. 5 pair is cautiously optimistic about the upcoming edition at home.
“There is no target, we haven’t spoke anything about that. We just want to be there till the end, go as far as possible,” Satwik, recovering from a recurring shoulder injury, said on Thursday.
“But we are not thinking so much ahead, we don’t want to jinx it or put pressure on ourselves. Just one match at a time, depending on how our body is reacting.”
The injury forced the Indians to pull out of their last two outings in as many months, their last competition being the Singapore Open in May which they won.
The duo is next only to P.V. Sindhu and Saina Nehwal to win multiple medals at the marquee event, winning bronze in 2022 and 2025. A third here would seal their spot among the country’s badminton greats.
“Ideally yes, you would want match practice. But coming into a tournament, I wouldn’t say it greatly affects performance,” Chirag insisted.
“I think the most important thing is to be playing in a tournament injury-free. You don’t want to have a great competitive tournament leading up to the World Championships and then playing through injury.”
The Singapore Open also helped the duo end a two-year long title drought stretching all the way back to Thailand Open in 2024, third-place finishes at the 2025 Worlds and World Tour Finals and the Thomas Cup earlier notwithstanding.
“It did give us a lot of relief, a huge boost mentally as well and also confidence-wise. I think it definitely was very important for us because there were some wins like beating the Koreans in the semi-finals, and we understood that whatever we’ve been doing is actually working. It was a step in the right direction,” Chirag added.
Satwik was candid about the season so far. “Yeah, it’s been a mixed bag. But I wasn’t really satisfied so far because the kind of game we want to play, we are not up to the mark there.
“Losing and winning is fine but we felt somewhere we weren’t playing up to our mark in the first three tournaments. Even in Singapore, we weren’t at 100 percent fitness. But we know when we’re fit enough, we can win tournaments,” he declared.
Published – August 13, 2026 06:56 pm IST
