Social media trolling and fan-wars often stem from ignorant understanding of the sport, and fans from two nations have often traded vile racist and body shaming insults directed at the shuttlers, with all of Aaron Chia, Satwik and Chirag being targets. Between the pairings, cordiality and respect prevail effortlessly, and badminton is always interesting. But the disservice to a game matchup, and a wazzocky focus on nationalities means, when the Indians do beat the Malaysians, there is little comprehension of what they have achieved either.

So who is Aaron Chia? An extremely soft-spoken wizard of badminton who had once enthusiastically spoken of competing with buddies on the number of dosais he could polish off, like some Indians compete on pani puris. Prolifically talented with strokeplay, not needing overt aggression or any other antics because his racquet can write entire symphonies. Stocky yes, but he put himself through such a regimented punishing routine before the Paris Olympics – not to lose weight per se, but lean out to achieve agility and quicken reflexes. The Malaysians beat the Indians and went on to take bronze. A masterly reader of the game, who keeps pulling wins even if their coaches and opponents know they can improve their attack from the back court exponentially.

At the net, his skills from serve variations to puppeteering entire passages of play with his deceptions and reflexes and racquet sleights, have cost Indians some massive matches.

The head to head is 10-3, but the two pairings have played some of the toughest badminton and are part of each other’s storyline, like Carolina Marin and Nozomi Okuhara are pivotal to Sindhu’s career arc. While the Olympics loss was the most heartbreaking one handed out to the Indians, Aaron-Wooi also notched a 21-16 in the decider at the 2022 World Championship semis. Satwik-Chirag had denied the Malaysians the Asian Games gold match, and also won their Indonesian Open crown, beating the Malaysians.

But even two Olympic bronzes and a first-ever World title doesn’t assure Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik of eternal loyalty of their own fans. Men’s doubles can be cruel that way. At the Sudirman Cup this summer, Aaron-Wooi were fielded in a Knockout against Japan, ahead of the higher ranked Sze Fei-Izzuddin. Fresh from winning the Asian Championships, the Malaysian coaching group reckoned they were riding a wave against Hoki-Kobayashi.

No.3 seeds Chia/Soh