PARIS: A fourth World Superseries crown this year for Kidambi Srikanth. The most successful Superseries singles winner this season completed his conquest of Paris in just over half-an-hour against Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto in the Men’s Singles final at the Yonex French Open 2017.
Kidambi was all business from start to finish – the Indian kept his head down; a monk-like focus evident in his bearing. He took some time to get going, but once he did, Nishimoto started to bleed points. The Indian’s accuracy was unerring – two points late in the match encapsulated the proceedings – the first, a down-the-line hammer blow, got him to 19-12; a cross-court smash found the same spot for match point. Minutes later he had his fourth Superseries crown from five finals this year – the 21-14 21-13 result continuing what has been a sensational year for the Indian.
Following his runners-up show at the Singapore Open in April, where he lost to friend and compatriot B Sai Praneeth, Srikanth has gone on to claim the men’s singles titles at Indonesia, Australia, Denmark and now France.
Such has been his consistency this year that the World No 4, who will climb to 2 once the rankings are updated, has won 37 and lost only eight matches played in 2017, with a winning percentage of 82.2.
“I’m just happy with the way it went the last couple of weeks,” said Kidambi. “I think he’s played really well this week. I felt it would be a tough match, but in the end I’m happy with the way I played. In the semis and quarters I started slow, but today I wanted to start well. He’s an aggressive player and I didn’t want to give him any chances.
“I’m surprised with my fitness. The way we’ve been training the last ten months is doing its part now. I have to continue working like that.”
Asked if the No.1 ranking was now on his mind, Kidambi said he wasn’t in the pursuit of points. “Definitely it would be good to get there, but I’m not thinking of it now. I don’t have points to defend, so I don’t want to push myself for (the sake of) rankings. I just want to enjoy playing.”
Srikanth’s Super Series tally of four (two events remain in 2017) for a calendar year means that now only legends Lee Chong Wei (7), Lin Dan (5) and Chen Long (5) are ahead of the Gopichand Badminton Academy Indian star on this count.
