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Indian shuttlers may have faltered at the season’s first BWF World Tour Super 500 tournament in Malaysia, but India still finished with a title at the other tournament of the week -- the Swedish Open 2018. Rising shuttler Siddharth Pratap Singh emerged victorious on Sunday at this International Series tournament held in Lund, Sweden. This is the first senior international title of his fledgling career.
Singh, all of 19, needed 33 minutes to dismiss the challenge of Denmark’s Mads Christophersen 21-15, 21-11 in the summit clash.
The teenager gave glimpses of his amazing talent countless times in this tournament. After being stretched to three games in the first round by Danish qualifier Patrick Bjerregaard, Singh did not lose any more game on his way to the title. He also showed the door to the third seed Sergey Sirant in the second round before accounting for Felix Burestedt and Hermansah in the semi-finals and final respectively.
Singh has been on the rise for quite some time. In December, the youngster won four matches at the Tata Open where his run came to an end at the hands of the eventual runner-up Lakshya Sen in the quarter-finals.
Singh was not the only one to do well at this event. Kartikey Gulshan Kumar reached the quarter-finals where he succumbed to an 18-21, 12-21 defeat to Indonesia’s Hermansah.
In women’s singles, India had only one representative -- Saili Rane, who was seeded seventh. Rane was sent packing in the first round by Denmark’s Line Christophersen.
India had a good showing in the doubles section. The men’s doubles pair of Adarsh Kumar and Jagadish Yadav went down in the semi-finals to the second seeds Oliver Leydon-Davis and Lasse Molhede. The fourth seeded mixed doubles combine of Rohan Kapoor and Kuhoo Garg was stopped in the last-four stage by the second seeds Kristoffer Knudsen and Isabella Nielsen.
Women’s doubles was an exception, though. Fourth seeds Kuhoo Garg and Ningshi Block Hazarika lost their opening round match.
