In Badminton, Indian shuttlers Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty began their Thailand Open 2026 badminton campaign with a hard-fought win at the Nimibutr Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand today.
Top seeds Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, fourth in the badminton rankings, beat Indonesia’s unranked pair of Putra Erwiansyah and Bagas Maulana 21-19, 23-21, 21-10 to enter the second round. After a sluggish start that left them trailing 16-11, Satwik-Chirag stormed back with seven straight points to seize control and edge a tight opening game.
The second game saw the momentum swing as the Indonesian pair rallied from 11-9 down to force a tie-break, which they clinched to level the contest and set up a decider. However, the Indian badminton players ensured that there would be no further hiccups by dominating the final game from start to finish and closing out the contest in an hour and four minutes.
The Indian pair will face Malaysia’s Bryan Jeremy Goonting and Muhammad Haikal next.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty are eyeing their third Thailand Open title. They previously won the BWF Super 500 tournament twice – in 2019 and 2024.
India’s MR Arjun, Hariharan Amsakarunan and women’s doubles duo Rutaparna Panda and Swetaparna Panda will be in action in their opening main draw matches later in the day.
In the men’s singles qualifying matches, Manav Choudhary gave Paris 2024 Olympic bronze medallist Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia a close fight but lost the match 21-19, 21-18.
Anushka Shahapurkar also exited in the women’s singles qualifiers after a 21-5, 21-7 defeat to Thailand’s Yataweemin Ketklieng.
Mohit Jaglan and Lakshita Jaglan’s mixed doubles campaign also ended in the qualifiers after a 21-11, 21-18 defeat to Tsai Fu-Cheng and Sung Yu-Hsuan of Chinese Taipei.
India have sent a sizeable 27-member contingent competing at the BWF Super 500 tournament in Bangkok this year.
