Ayush Shetty outlasts Shi Yu Qi to set the World Championships on fire

Ayush Shetty stood at the far end of the court, a few points from the most important victory of his career, while Shi Yu Qi began to make the match look familiar again.

Shi, China’s world No. 1 and the defending champion, had been close to beaten before. He had also beaten Shetty in each of their first three meetings, most recently in the Badminton Asia Championships final in April. That one lasted 40 minutes. Shi won it without strain, not on Monday.

Shetty had led 16-5 in the deciding game of their World Championships first-round match Monday at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium. He had reached 20-15. Then Shi, an expert at reducing a court to the narrowest possible space, began pulling him back into rallies. He worked the net, found angles and saved four match points.

On the fifth, Shetty played a deceptive flick. Shi could only stand helplessly stranded in the middle of the court. The score was 21-14, 13-21, 21-19, after 73 minutes. Shi was out in the opening round. Shetty, a 21-year-old unseeded Indian playing his first World Championships, was through to the second round.

“I was telling myself to calm down,” Shetty said. “I was getting a bit nervous because he was really catching up. The momentum was with him and everything I did, he somehow managed to retrieve. So I think I was trying to calm down and, you know, be aggressive.”

The result was a startling beginning to a tournament India is hosting for the first time since Hyderabad staged the event in 2009. It also reshaped the men’s singles draw on its first day, removing the top seed and reigning champion before the tournament had settled into its weekly rhythm.

There was little mystery about the support inside the building. Every point Shetty won brought a response. Shi acknowledged afterward that the atmosphere had mattered, saying that the stadium’s backing for Shetty had made a difference. Shetty, too, said the crowd had supplied energy when the finish became tense.

The match had begun with a different kind of tension: Shi’s trouble adjusting to the conditions and Shetty’s willingness to attack. Shetty took the first game 21-14, using his steep smash effectively and taking advantage of errors from Shi. At the interval in the decider, he was ahead 11-5. When he moved to 16-5, the contest appeared finished.

Shi did not play like a man ready to leave. He took greater control at the net, and Shetty began to feel the difficulty of scoring the final points against a player who has made that task uncomfortable for so many opponents. Still, Shetty found enough in reserve. His first win over Shi came at the moment when he most needed one.

The scale of the reversal was hard to miss. In April, Shi had beaten Shetty in the Asian Championships final in straight games. Shetty arrived in New Delhi having won a silver medal at that event, a result that had offered evidence of his progress but also a reminder of the distance between an emerging player and the game’s leading man. On Monday, that distance narrowed sharply.

The day was not solely about the upset. India won all five matches involving its players, an opening-day sweep that offered the home crowd several reasons to stay loud.

P.V. Sindhu, the former world champion and ninth seed, beat Ireland’s Sophia Noble, 21-7, 21-11, in 29 minutes. Sindhu opened with an 8-0 lead and controlled the first game at the net. Noble competed more effectively from the other side of the court in the second, extending rallies and testing Sindhu’s forehand. Sindhu nonetheless moved from 12-10 to 20-10 with eight consecutive points before ending the match with a net dribble.

“I think overall, playing for the first time, it was important for me to get used to the court conditions and see how it is,” Sindhu said. “Today, I think that was the first thing for me that came into my mind. But I think I managed it well and the court conditions are pretty good.”

Sindhu will play Canada’s Wenyu Zhang in the second round. Zhang defeated Stefani Stoeva of Bulgaria, 21-7, 21-19.

Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand Pullela advanced in women’s doubles with a 21-9, 21-13 win over Spain’s Paula López and Lucia Rodríguez. Kavipriya Selvam and Simran Singhi followed them, recovering from 17-20 in the first game to defeat the Spanish pair Nikol Carulla and Carmen María Jiménez, 22-20, 21-14.

M.R. Arjun and Hariharan Amsakarunan began the Indian program with a 21-16, 6-4 retirement win against Ireland’s Scott Guildea and Paul Reynolds.

Away from the Indian matches, Japan’s Yushi Tanaka beat China’s No. 16 seed Weng Hongyang, 21-17, 21-14. In the women’s draw, the top seed An Se-young of South Korea and No. 3 Wang Zhiyi of China won in straight games. China’s Han Yue, seeded fifth, recovered from losing her opener against Scotland’s Kirsty Gilmour to win 20-22, 21-13, 21-13. The women’s top seed began efficiently, while No. 3 Wang Zhiyi also moved through 21-12, 21-13 against Beiwen Zhang. The top of the women’s draw held firm despite the men’s upheaval.

Those were solid results. Shetty’s was something else.

A home World Championships can make a player feel exposed. On Monday night, it gave Shetty room to withstand the most difficult minutes of his young career.