It just keeps getting better and better for Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen.

Still enjoying the best phase of their careers which they hit in their post-30s (Astrup is 32, Rasmussen 35), the Danes continued to amaze, staying in medal contention with a revenge win over world champions Kang Min Hyuk/Seo Seung Jae.

A year ago they – somewhat unexpectedly – made the final of the World Championships (falling to Kang/Seo), and since then they have played at a level they were not known for. At Paris 2024, having come through the Group of Death, they once again played an astute, defensively solid game, shutting shop against the Koreans in straight games after saving two game points in the second.

Inevitably, the question of the World Championships loss at home last year came up.

“The match looked a bit alike (with the World Championships),” said Rasmussen. “We’ve talked a lot about how to turn it around if we had the same situation … but it’s one thing to talk about and another to do it. We handled it really well and I’m so proud of our performance.

“You get to play two matches from now, winning either one will be a medal. In this arena we get two more matches for which we will be forever grateful. It’s simply crazy and amazing to play in that hall.”

“It was almost like playing in the Royal Arena at the World Championships,” said his partner, about the crowd. “We didn’t think we could experience that again. Now we have two more chances to get inside this arena and hopefully it will be more than just a bronze medal match.”

Next up will be a repeat clash against Olympic champions Lee Yang/Wang Chi-Lin, to whom they had lost their group match, while the other half will see top seeds Liang Wei Keng/Wang Chang against Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik.

Malaysians Chia/Soh turned the tables on their recent nemeses Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty. Having lost their last three encounters, the Malaysians looked all at sea against the Indians in the early phase of the contest, before stitching together the only sort of game that could hold their opponents at bay.

“They kept poking us,” Shetty would recall, still shocked by how the match had slipped their grasp, preventing them from becoming the first Indian doubles pair in an Olympic semifinal.

What he meant was the dominance of the Malaysians in the short exchanges around the serve; the longer the rally went the likelier the Indians were to fire winners.

“We sort of let them back into the game at 4-0 in the second,” said Shetty. “We were quite comfortable and we should’ve led until the interval but it became back and forth. Kudos to them, they kept poking us. We are disappointed that we couldn’t win … but life goes on.”

“Definitely a big heartbreak,” rued Rankireddy. “We had similar heartbreaks but we are used to that. We wanted to do well for our coach as well. He worked really hard, harder than us. We felt really positive coming on the court, we thought it would be our day. I felt we were in a comfortable position on defence too. But they kept poking us in the 1-2-3 strokes, but when the rally came up we got those points. It’s a good lesson for us. They were steadier than us.”

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