Hong Kong Open: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty win opener after bronze in badminton World Championships

India's leading men's doubles team of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty started their Hong Kong Open Super 500 tournament with a victory on Tuesday. On the same day, Kiran George successfully qualified for the men's singles main draw.Fresh from their World Championships bronze medal in Paris, Satwik and Chirag defeated Taiwan's Chiu Hsiang Chieh and Wang Chi-Lin with scores of 21-13, 18-21, 21-10.The former world number one pair showed strong performance in the first game, lost the second, but dominated the final game with their superior net play and powerful smashes.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!The eighth-seeded Indian duo will next face the winner between Japan's Kenya Mitsuhashi/Hiroki Okamura and Thailand's Peeratchai Sukphun/Pakkapon Teeraratsakul.In the men's singles qualifying rounds, Kiran secured consecutive victories to enter the main draw. He first won against Malaysia's Cheam June Wei and then defeated fellow Indian S Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian.Sankar had earlier beaten England's Wang Yue Hang in his opening match. World number 38 Kiran will now face Singapore's Jia Heng Jason Teh.In a surprising turn of events, Tharun Mannepalli eliminated former world number one Kidambi Srikanth in the qualifying round with scores of 28-26, 21-13.However, Mannepalli's journey ended in his next match against Malaysia's fourth seed Justin Hoh, losing with scores of 21-23, 13-21, 18-21.