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Super Srikanth
Faking News or The UnReal Times would not have blinked twice to use the headlines "Lin Dan beaten in the finals of the China Open by an Indian called K Srikanth - not the cricketer". But that is what happened. The enormity of this achievement is quite staggering, imagine Vishwanathan Anand being beaten in a speed chess match in Chennai by Liren Ding of China. Or Roger Federer being beaten in the finals of the Swiss Open by David Goffin of Belgium. Why Liren Ding and David Goffin you ask, these players are the number No. 22 in the world in their respective sports.
The match was just after the high of Saina Nehwal winning the China Open women's singles, the first China Open finals where there was no chinese finalist. But what the crowd had come to see was the legend - Super Dan put on an exhibition. The commentators Morton Frost and Gillian Clarke were gleefully waiting for Lin Dan to turn it on. But what followed was a superlative performance by Srikanth. Not only did he match Lin Dan in defence, he outmanoeuvred him in attack.
There were a few uncharacteristic unforced errors from Lin Dan, there were a few net shots that he normally wouldn't have missed, but take nothing away from Srikanth, He matched Lin Dan shot per shot and used half smashes and angles to such effect, that I saw Lin Dan struggling in his movement. Dan is probably the best mover on the court in the history of badminton. He glides towards the shuttle and seems to have so much time to decide which shot to play. That same Lin Dan got wrong-footed twice by Srikanth's guile when he returned the short serve.
To be honest, this was not Lin Dan at his best, I have seen matches where Lin Dan was mercurial at worst and Superhuman at best. His youtube show reel is full of incredible rallies and points. But his play against Srikanth was not his worst either. He was moving well, playing his great shots, but not often enough. He didn't attack as much as he should have. His deadly down the line smashes were too few and far in between. Srikanth to his credit has a brilliant all round game and if he develops his strength and fitness will be a top 10 player shortly. These are exciting times for Indian Badminton. To end with an amazing fact, the country with the most number of players in the top 100 is not China,not Korea but India.
