Rankireddy-Shetty lose to top seeds in French Open final

The Indian men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty’s glorious run at the French Open Super 750 badminton ended tamely after they were beaten by top seeds Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo of Indonesia 18-21, 16-21 in the final, in Paris, on Sunday.

The unseeded, world No. 11 pair, which won their maiden Super 500 title at the Thailand Open in August, was hoping to become the first all-Indian pair to win the French Open since Partho Ganguli and Vikram Singh achieved the feat in 1983, but were halted in their stride by the all-round superiority of the Indonesians.

Nevertheless, the string of giant-killing victories scored this week in Paris took them closer to the highly-coveted top-10 spot and a berth at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Earlier in the day, Korean teen sensation An Se-young stunned reigning Olympic champion Carolina Marin in an epic final to win the women's singles title.

The 17-year-old Korean erased a one-game deficit to beat the three-time World champion 16-21, 21-18, 21-5 in a gripping 69-minute contest.

It was Se-young's fourth title this season and first at the BWF Super 750 level.

Rio Olympics champion and fifth seed Chinese Chen Long grabbed the men's singles crown with a 21-19, 21-12 win over Indonesia's Jonathan Christie in the final which lasted 51 minutes.

In the men's doubles final Indonesians were as a distinct class above. They raced to a 7-1 lead before the Indians showed that their place in the final was no fluke as they fought back and levelled scores at 17.

However, the Indonesians, who are enjoying their 121st week as world No 1, grabbed three game points. Rankireddy-Shetty could save just one.

In the second game, the Indians fell back, but did well to level the scores at 6-6 after Rankireddy won a video referral.

The scores ran neck and neck till 10-10 before the Indians netted one as Marcus and Kevin went into the break with a one-point lead.

Marcus and Kevin then broke away at 12-all to establish an 18-13 lead. They duo soon had four match-points and sealed their seventh title of the year after Rankireddy hit wide.

Rankireddy and Shetty had an impressive week as they shocked reigning World champions Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan, before scripting stunning wins over world No. 8 Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen and world No. 6 Hiroyuki Endo and Yuta Watanabe.