Top seeds Anirudh Chandrasekar and Sriram Balaji and fifth seeds Yuki Bhambri and DK Suresh have been drawn in opposite halves. Two wins each would bring a medal, and the draw allows an all-Indian gold medal match.
NAGOYA — Men’s doubles is India’s strongest medal chance in tennis at the 20th Asian Games, and the draw has set it up well. Anirudh Chandrasekar and Sriram Balaji, the top seeds, are in the top half. Yuki Bhambri and DK Suresh, seeded fifth, are in the bottom half. The two pairs can only meet in the final. Both have first-round byes. Both losing semifinalists receive bronze, so two match wins would secure a medal.
(Rankings in brackets are the doubles rankings printed on the official draw sheet.)
Anirudh Chandrasekar / Sriram Balaji (1)
Balaji is at No. 50, a point below the career-high No. 49 he reached on 14 September. Anirudh is at No. 88; his best is No. 84, from 24 August. Both are close to the top of their rankings, and they reached a Challenger final together in Mexico last month.
Second round: Mongolia’s Badrakh Munkhbaatar and Zolbador Urnukh, or Nepal’s Abhishek Bastola and Pradip Khadka. Neither pair has a doubles ranking.
Quarter-final (for a medal): The eighth seeds are Thailand’s Pawit Sornlaksup (809) and Wishaya Trongcharoenchaikul (602, career high 450). The other teams in this section are China’s Jiang Fumin (1164) and Zhang Tianyi (943), Iran’s Kasra Rahmani (1238) and Ali Yazdani (985), and an unranked Tajik pair.
Semi-final: The fourth seeds are Japan’s Yusuke Kushihara (291, career high 239) and Shunsuke Nakagawa (300, career high 234). The seventh seeds are Chinese Taipei’s Hung Tsing-Hao (236, career high 153) and Wu Tung-Lin (769). The unseeded teams in this quarter include two pairs of singles players: Korea’s Hong Seongchan and Kwon Soonwoo, and Kazakhstan’s Aleksandr Shevchenko and Timofei Skatov. Pakistan’s Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi (1119), partnering Muzammil Murtaza (752), is also here.
Yuki Bhambri / DK Suresh (5)
Yuki is the most accomplished player in the draw. He is at No. 45, having reached a career-high No. 18 in February, and he was a US Open doubles semi-finalist in 2025. He won singles and doubles bronze at Incheon 2014. DK Suresh is at No. 662 (career high 352). The pair won a three-hour doubles rubber together in India’s Davis Cup win over the Netherlands in February. Yuki missed the Korea tie with a quadriceps tendon problem, but India’s physio says he is fit to play.
Second round: Kazakhstan’s Denis Yevseyev (546) and Beibit Zhukayev (1494), or Hong Kong’s Nicholas Cheng Siu Chi and Wong Tsz Fu (786).
Quarter-final (for a medal): Most likely the third seeds from Chinese Taipei, Ray Ho (listed as Ho Chenjui; 69, career high 60) and Hsu Yu-Hsiou (284, career high 145). Hsu won the doubles gold in Hangzhou. The other possible opponents are a Mongolian pair or Pakistan’s Aqeel Khan (1834) and Muhammad Shoaib.
Semi-final: The second seeds are Korea’s Nam Jisung (112, career high 102) and Park Uisung (240, career high 212). The sixth seeds are Thailand’s Pruchya Isaro (107), who was inside the top 100 this year, and Maximus Jones (699, career high 383). Both Isaro and Jones won doubles bronze in Hangzhou.
The verdict
Anirudh Chandrasekar and Sriram Balaji have the easier route to a medal: their probable quarter-final opponents are ranked outside the top 600. Yuki Bhambri and DK Suresh probably face a tougher match for a medal against Ho and Hsu. However, Yuki’s experience makes the pair nobody in the bottom half will want to play.