Published: December 20, 2025 at 4:56 pm
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty’s stay at the HSBC BWF World Tour Finals ended on Saturday when they went down to China’s Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang in the men’s doubles semifinals at Hangzhou. However, the Indians won a bronze for their effort.
This is also only the second BWF World Tour Finals medal ever won by Indian shuttlers. PV Sindhu, who won the women’s singles title in 2018, remains the only gold medallist from the country in the competition.
The third seeded Indians began in rousing fashion as they toyed with their rivals. The duo romped to an easy 21-10 win, and it looked as if they were all set for a romp into the finals. But the Chinese pair had other ideas and dished out a fine performance in the second game. The Indians were stunned 27-21.
Satwik and Chirag have been involved in three-game matches in the league phase. They had always bounced back and had kept a clean slate. But on this day, they were shaken up badly with the loss in the second game.
The Chinese pair just swamped the Indians and took the game at 21-13 and booked a final berth. The match lasted 63 minutes. This was Satwik-Chirag’s eighth defeat in 12 matches against the Chinese pair. Five of these clashes have been in 2025.
Popov becomes first French player to enter final
Christo Popov’s dream campaign extended into the final day as he became the first French player to achieve the feat. In the semifinals, the world No.8 overwhelmed Kodai Naraoka with speed and precision, 21-19 21-8, his first straight-games result of the week. It is his third final of the year, after previous finals at the YONEX Swiss Open and the YONEX French Open.
“Waking up this morning I was feeling very tired,” said Popov. “I was getting ready for a long match with Kodai, knowing his rally style. The first game was very important, being very long and winning that made me confident for the second game, and I got more aggressive. He made more mistakes and I got a huge gap at the beginning.”
To become the first Frenchman in the final was special, and Popov said it was all a new experience for him. “Just to participate was a new thing, so every day is a new thing for me. I’m very happy about playing well. I’m happy to be healthy, almost pain free, which is good. It’s just positive now.
“One thought was getting out of the group stage, which would be a huge thing for me. Now I’m into the final, so am happy. But also, I had a long period without competing, and that was a good thing for me to come this week to play against the top players for one week and also challenge ourselves to see where we are, and to prepare for the next season.”
Young to take on Wang in women’s singles final
In the women’s singles, top seed An Se Young of South Korea brooked no challenge from Japan’s fourth seed Akane Yamaguchi. The Korea shuttler took the first game at 21-15 and had an even easier outing in the second as she won 21-12.
She will take on second seed Wang Zhi Yi of China, who came from a game behind to pip Ratchanok Intanon 15-21, 21-17, 21-11 in a one-hour sixteen minutes clash. Ratchanok Intanon had her chances against Wang, but the Chinese weathered the challenge in the second game before cruising through to her second successive World Tour Finals final.
In the women’s doubles, Japanese Yuki Fukushima and Mayu Matsumoto finally found a way past Pearly Tan and Thinaah Muralitharan after five straight losses, beating the Malaysians 21-19 21-13.
They will take on South Korean pair Baek Ha Na and Lee So Hee, who defeated China’s third seeds Liu Sheng Shu and Tan Ning in a three-game thriller, which went to one hour and 20 minutes. The Koreans lost the first game 15-21 but came back strongly to take the next two games at 21-16 and 21-19 to book their final berth.
Home mixed doubles pair Feng Yan Zhe and Huang Dong Ping made their 10th final this year beating Hiroki Midorikawa and Natsu Saito 22-20 17-21 21-11. The Chinese are in the hunt for their eighth title and are in their fifth straight final.
Fourth seeds Jiang Zhen Bang and Wei Ya Xin ensured that the gold medal will be won the home country by making it to the final. They defeated Malaysia’s Chen Tang Jie and Toh Ee Wei, the third seeds, 9-21, 21-11, 21-17.
