Competition: OUE Singapore Open Superseries 2017Venue: Singapore Indoor StadiumCategory: SuperseriesDate: Sunday, April 16, 2017Round: FinalTime: B Sai Praneeth vs Srikanth Kidambi final around 12 noon ISTChannel: Star Sports 4 and Star Sports HD4Live streaming: Star Sports Hotstar
Preview
Srikanth Kidambi (BWF Rank: 29 ) vs Sai Praneeth (BWF Rank: 30)
Head-to-head: Sai Praneeth leads 4-1
For the first time in the history of Superseries tournaments, there will be an all-India final. Naturally, excitement is sky-high for this big clash.
Interestingly, the two shuttlers are both aged 24 and are training partners at the Pullela Gopichand Academy in Hyderabad. They are even placed one after the other in the current BWF Rankings.
However, no matter how much similar they are, there is one big difference. The two are at different junctures of their respective careers.
For Sai Praneeth, this tournament has been all about finding his self-belief for which the search has been long and hard. A junior World Championships bronze medallist in 2010, he was immediately touted as the next biggest name in Indian badminton. In the subsequent years, all he has made the news for is a few scattered wins over the greats of the game which include Taufik Hidayat and Lee Chong Wei. Those never translated to any big title. Injuries too did not help his cause.
For Srikanth Kidambi, the Singapore Open helped him rediscover himself – the fighter he once was and the fighter he again could be. Srikanth has already proved himself at the game's elite level. His China Open Superseries title win over Lin Dan in 2014 showed he was the best Indian men's singles player to come up in a long time. The Guntur-born ace followed it up with his second Superseries title – this time on home ground at the India Open in 2015.
There was no stopping Srikanth until inconsistency and then, worst of all, a stress fracture on right ankle derailed him towards the end of 2016.
The injury came at the most inopportune moment right after Srikanth was beginning to look like his old self after reaching the semi-finals of the Australian Open and the quarter-finals of Rio Olympics.
The three-month hiatus saw the former World No. 3 dropping outside the top 30. Srikanth made his comeback early this year and it was at his first tournament – the Syed Modi International – where he and Sai Praneeth had their most recent showdown.
With his fitness level still not at its peak, Srikanth’s title defence crumbled to an end in the semi-finals at the hands of the lower-seeded Sai.
Three months on, the former India Open champion has finally found his lost confidence. If anything, the second round where he saved three match points to eke out a win, should be the greatest indicator that he is finally feeling free and is ready to claw his way back to the top echelons again.
Can that make any impact and help Srikanth avenge that Syed Modi International defeat or will the result still stay the same?
