BWF: Srikant Advances To The Next Round

It was a fought victory in slow conditions and Kidambi Srikanth drove himself to an impressive win over rising star Li Shi Feng to make the third round of the BWF World Championships 2021. Srikant outplaying the young Chinese 15-21 21-18 21-17 in 69 minutes.

It was a good morning session for India, with Lakshya Sen, Pusarla V. Sindhu, and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty too making the Round of 16.

However, he was reluctant to read too much into his performance today, although he did concede that he was finding his touch. Considered as a dark horse in this championship Srikant is yet to win a medal at the World Championships.

After the match, Srikant said: “I always had that motivation coming into any big event, but I really couldn’t do well at the World Championships as much as I’d want to. But again, this year is a new year, it’s a fresh tournament, fresh conditions, it’s about going there and doing your best.

“After 2017 and half of 2018 I was playing well, but then few injuries here and there, but I was just pushing really hard. I’m just happy to find my form again. I’m on that road to a good future.”

“If you look at the kind of matches I’ve played in the last three months, I’m kind of playing better, I can see it. On the court, I can see I’m getting better. But it’s a process and I’m just in the process of getting better. I don’t want to stop here; I’d say I’m at 15-20 percent, so I’d want to get to 100 percent.

“I’d like to put myself at 15-20 percent because it will give me a bigger scope of improvement. I want to be more cautious and give myself a bigger target.”