Satwik-Chirag enter second round at Korea Open

Star Indian men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty stormed into the second round with a straight-game win over Thailand's Supak Jomkoh and Kittinupong Kedren in the Korea Open Super 500 tournament here on Tuesday.

The world number 3 pair beat Jomkoh and Kedren 21-16 21-14 in the round of 32 to set up a clash with China's He Ji Ting and Zhou Hao Dong in the next round.

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World number 27 MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila, however, couldn't complete the match after the former suffered from a back issue and retired midway in the opening game while lagging 5-6 against eighth seeded Chinese Liu Yu Chen and Ou Xuan Yi in their opening round.

"I felt a pain in my back during the rallies. I applied spray for pain relief but I wasn't feeling comfortable, so we decided to pull out. The physio said it looks like a back spasm and should be fine within a few days. I will be travelling to Japan. So lets see. Hopefully I will be okay," Arjun told PTI.

India's Harshit Aggarwal also couldn't reach the main draw after losing to Korea's Choi Pyeong Gang 15-21 21-10 10-21 in his second qualification match. He had beaten Tan Jia Jie of Malaysia in his opening match.

Another Indian, Shashwat Dalal also went down in his first round, losing 14-21 17-21 to Jeong Min Seon of Korea, while Meiraba Maisnam withdrew from the qualifiers.

Playing their first tournament since winning the Indonesia Open Super 1000 last month, Satwik and Chirag dished out a compact game as they opened up a 4-1 lead and kept moving ahead to grab a 11-6 lead at the interval. The Indian duo didn't give much chance to its opponent and from 18-15, took the remaining points to grab a 1-0 lead.

After the change of sides, the Thai players gave a good account of themselves as they managed to lead 9-4. However, Satwik and Chirag soon scripted a fightback to jump to 15-11 and held their fort as the Thai combination crumbled.

Olympic medallist PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth, HS Prannoy will be among the Indian contenders this week.