Of all the pairings that Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty battled this outstanding season, the Chinese Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang have proven to be the trickiest to tactically break down.
A couple of specific pairings, Seo-Kang and Astrup-Rasmussen, will demand a few technical tweaks from the Indians but Satwik-Chirag will be on their way against those sooner than later. Against Liang-Wang, though, they need careful and constant threadbaring and strategy upgrades and improvs heading into the 2024 season.
The Chinese are not exactly nemeses who just can’t be stubbed out or swatted aside like the Minions once were. They aren’t India’s bogey team either, yet can morph into a bee in a bonnet. For, their ability to shape-shift and dish out new threats is dangerous as Indians head into the Olympics 2024 year, where the Chinese will stake an equal claim to gold.
Liang-Wang showed up first against the Indians in early 2023. The two times out of five the Indians beat them, an all-out attack oozing power in two straight sets was the best means to go about it. Both at the Asian Games team event and, more impressively, at the Korean Open, which was easily Satwik-Chirag’s most dominant showing, raining down shells on the Chinese got the job done. But the three times the Indians have lost to the brand new Chinese World No. 1s, it is evident that the latter has a handle on the third set, which they throttle from pretty early on, making those deciders pretty fraught for Satwik-Chirag.
India’s Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty celebrate after winning a men’s doubles match at the Asian Games in Hangzhou. (PTI Photo)
Satwik-Chirag saved six match points to reach 20-19 last Sunday at Shenzhen and put up an almighty fightback before they went down 21-19 in the third. But what was worrying was how they wound up at 20-13 in the first place.
Wang Chang would tell BWF: “After becoming world No.1, we didn’t play in Japan; we were training and doing some analysis. So this tournament we could produce our best performance. Our opponents were very persistent and made very few errors. The momentum was with them. We lost a few consecutive points and panicked. We really wanted to win the last point, so that’s why we were disoriented. We’ve been in this situation before, where we lost a big lead. Although we were prepared, we were overthinking. Fortunately, the ending was good.”
The Chinese had cost the Indians progress at the All England, beating them in Round 2 earlier, prevailing 21-19 in the third. Their threat remains consistent.
Liang, strong and explosive, whose girth ought not to be mistaken for sluggishness, has a singeing smash and some devilish netplay. He is extremely proactive, is deadly quick in improvisations and can adapt to pace variations in split seconds. He is pugnacious and quite simply fearless in defence, eking out reflexes stubbornly when continuously peppered. You can’t scare him with a barrage on the body for his torso defence is excellent, and he tracks back happily. He’s also a bundle of aggression and could hit the shuttle deep and hard even as a kid.
Wang Chang, the taller one, reads opponents well, can hit from the back, is more than competent at the net where he likes to play his little tricks from, and strategises on his feet.
For some reason, the Chinese smile a lot. Not that Satwik-Chirag would get disarmed or fazed, they’ll grin right back. But Liang-Wang are particularly difficult to induce anarchy in.
A Chinese blogger once asked Liang about why he was perennially amused. “We all actually love to laugh, but I like to laugh when I play, Wang Chang laughs after a dead ball. I really don’t know what we laugh about. Every time I watch the replay, I feel that I am smiling happily. Maybe it is the playful nature of Sagittarius?” joked the older of the two, who turned 23 on November 30.
Eyeball combat
They are Chinese who grew up playing the Indonesian flat, fast games. And though they got together only midway through 2022, Liang-Wang have a knack for eyeball combat and a flair for creative, chameleon badminton, that can trip up the best in the world. The number of mind games that were playing out simul-chess when the two Indians and two Chinese served was a treat for any follower of doubles badminton.
Liang-Wang in action. (BMF)
There was pure drama in the first three shots, even before the rally hit the rhythm of anticipation. While Chirag and Wang have ace flick serves, the angles on short serves of Satwik and Liang make them lethal at the start. Chirag’s swivel serves almost buried the Chinese at Shenzhen. There’s no easing into a rally – it’s mind games from moment minus-one.
The Indonesians have a legacy in men’s doubles to guard. The Malaysians Aaron-Soh are seriously talented. The Taiwanese will be defending their crown in Paris, the Koreans surprised to win the World Championships and the Japanese can plan expertly with Park Joo-bong and coach Tan Kim Her. The Danes are in quite a purple patch. But it is the Chinese who are hurting from a loss at Tokyo, when their near 6’5″ Twin Towers, Liu Yuchen and Li Jinhui had to settle for silver, and copped an avalanche of criticism for losing the gold to Taiwan. When the Chinese coaches went looking for their next contenders, they couldn’t overlook a pair of jolly 20-year-olds, not too tall, but with a deep understanding of the game and infectious energy, who wore pressure lightly.
Rising to prominence
Liang came to prominence by beating Liu Yuchen at the Chinese Nationals, and by the end of their first full season together, Liang-Wang are World No. 1s. The chubby lad cops it for his tubby frame but has an endearing story. Speaking to the same blog before he hit international headlines, Liang was asked point-blank about being called a ‘fat boy.’ He would patiently explain how it was just baby fat that showed on his face first, that he actually ate very little at the buffet compared to teammates Feng Yanzhe and Jiang Zhenbang and he could gain weight even by sipping water.
He would go on to explain how he was quicker than most to do a SWOT in the middle of a fast-paced exchange. And though he didn’t like running, he was at the top of the men’s doubles group in both sprints and long-distance runs at the camp. When his father took him to his first coaches at age 7, he was a seriously chubby kid, who beat all the rest on speed and strength tests and hit the shuttle further than most.
He took great pride in his Cantonese language and culture of the Guangdong province, quite apart from the rest of his teammates though tutoring them in the language, and watched a lot of Hong Kong dramas, imitating hairstyles of the actor Huang Zongze. He would add with genuine fondness that some of Wang Chang’s shots were quite simply beyond his imagination. There’s plenty of relaxed camaraderie there and mutual respect – not unlike Satwik-Chirag.
Chang Wang from Ningbo, won plenty in juniors and smoothly swooped into net duties, with his fast hands aiding the quick feet. Both work up some nifty angles and with strong wrists have excellent shuttle control even as they refuse to lift the bird to offer opponents an attack on a platter.
Mathias Boe has some thinking to do when he looks back at the World Championship loss, in what was otherwise the best year for Satwik-Chirag as they netted the elusive Asiad gold, India’s first and finest in badminton. It’s 2023 mission accomplished and included a team event win against Liang-Wang. Boe wasn’t around at the China Masters though, and heading into 2024 where the mission is the Olympics gold, he’ll need to ensure the Liang-Wang threat is adequately covered. Their game shape-shifts each month.
Satwik-Chirag have the world’s best attacking game, and can end 2023 rightfully proud of all that they achieved. Yet, men’s doubles is the most fiercely contested category in badminton currently, and no matter how great a run they string together in the lead-up to the Olympics, the Indians will need to hold their nerve and keep their brains ticking till the gold is won. Liang-Wang especially are determined to deny them, no matter how much they hide their steely determination behind those goofy grins of theirs.
2023-12-03 06:05:19
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