French Open Super Series: Kidambi Srikanth beats Kenta Nishimoto to win title

HYDERABAD: Riding the crest of his sparkling form Kidambi Srikanth dished out a blemish less performance to collect his fourth Super Series title of the year. The 25-year-old dazzled in the 'City of Love' to become the first Indian French Open champion on Sunday.Srikanth took just 34 minutes to ease past Japanese qualifier Kento Nishimoto in the Super Series final 21-14, 21-13 at the Stade Pierre De Coubertin. In the process Srikanth surpassed Saina Nehwal as the only Indian to win four Super Series titles in a year. Saina won three in 2010."I feel good winning two titles in two weeks. I am lucky to pull off some close matches this week. I thank everyone who helped me doing this," an elated Srikanth said after the win.With his outstanding feats in 2017, Srikanth has entered the league of Indian legends like Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand. The Guntur-lad is also the only Indian to win back-to-back titles i.e two titles in two consecutive weeks in a season. He is the fourth in the world behind legends like Lin Dan, Lee Chong Wei and Chen Long to four men's singles titles.Such an outstanding feat came with an easy effort in the final. The title clash on Sunday resembled last week's demolition act, where he mowed down Lee Hyun Il of Korea for the Denmark Open title.The world No.4 crushed the Japanese qualifier with an aggressive power play. Trailing 5-9 in the first game, Srikanth suddenly changed gears by finishing off the rallies with ferocious overhead smashes. A couple pierced the rival's court with breakneck speed of 392 and 377 km/h.The firecracker shots made holes in Nishimoto's defence. Unable to return them or even reach them, Nishimoto lost momentum and with that confidence as Srikanth raced ahead to 11-9 and then to 15-11 in no time.The Hyderabadi shuttler, who switched from doubles to singles at the behest of his coach Gopichand, was on a different altitude from then on. Relying entirely on his attacking prowess Srikanth closed out the first game at 21-14 in just 16 minutes.The Indian was even more dominant in the second as he started off with a 4-0 lead and was up 11-5 at the break. Thereafter, he controlled the game and stumped his opponent.Gopichand was delighted with Srikanth's show. "It's a phenomenal achievement. Some fine badminton . Very very attacking, overall I think he really played a perfect game.Today's match he kept the rallies short and his attacking shots made him finish. The fact is that he started to be relaxed and paced himself much better," he said and added that Srikanth missed winning the World championship this year."He is in such fine form for the last few months that I expected him to win the World title. I always said that if he plays to his potential he has the ability to win many more titles," he added.