One can accept that Kidambi Srikanth was not a child prodigy like Saina Nehwal and P V Sindhu who set new landmarks on international circuit as teenagers.
One can accept that not many outside the badminton circuit had heard the name of this Guntur lad till he upset the legendary Lin Dan to win the China Open title three years ago.
One can also accept that his face has little or no expression whether he is winning or losing and that doesn’t help build a following in the television driven marketing system.
But it is difficult to accept that despite winning six Superseries titles, four of them in one year, Kidambi Srikanth is still not as celebrated a sports person as he should be. And, in no way are we hinting at acknowledgement from the commercial point of view. That will probably come later.
It is perhaps true that Nehwal and Sindhu have probably spoiled the appetite of India’s badminton fans with their exploits in the World Championships and the Olympics. The consistency of their success in the past few years in the major championships has definitely set the bar higher for all other Indian shuttlers.
Srikanth probably fell short of that “standard” when he missed a World Championship medal in Glasgow in August despite being primed for one after his back-to-back wins in Indonesia and Australia Superseries. But that blip apart, it is difficult to understand the absence of similar euphoria to the 24-year-old’s success on the BWF circuit.
There have been those mandatory congratulatory messages on Twitter and almost all media houses took note of his victory on Sunday at the French Superseries but the treatment of it made one believe that it was just another routine success for Indian badminton stars.
While it is probably heartening to see that a success at the Superseries level is beginning to feel routine in the last few years, what Srikanth achieved on Sunday should put him among the elites of Indian badminton’s Hall of Fame.
His win over Kenta Nishimoto made him only the fourth men’s singles player in world badminton to win four or more Superseries titles in a calendar year. He is also now the fourth most successful player in terms of overall titles behind Lee Chong Wei, Lin Dan and Chen Long.
In fact, even Nehwal has managed to win a maximum of three Superseries titles in one calendar year back in 2010 and Sindhu has a total of three titles in her kitty so far.
It’s worth mentioning that the draws at the Superseries are at times more difficult than the World Championship or even the Olympics where the federation tries to give representation to more countries, thereby diluting the field to some extent.
The scale of Srikanth’s achievement can also be gauged by the simple fact that in the 10 Superseries events played in 2017 so far, only two others – Lee Chong Wei (3) and Viktor Axelsen (2) – have managed to reach more than one final while players from eight different countries including two qualifiers made it to the summit clash.
But more than the numbers, it’s the pioneering role the 24-year-old has played in putting India’s men’s singles on the world map ever since winning his first Superseries title three years ago in China which deserves to be acknowledged.
A title of similar stature was last won 13 years ago by his mentor and chief national coach Pullela Gopichand at the All England and since then Indians were considered mere journeymen in Superseries level tournaments.
Gopichand did not win any other major before and after that while the legendary Prakash Padukone was the last Indian men’s singles shuttler to have a golden run in major international tournaments back in 1980s.
As things stand now, when the rankings come out on Thursday, Srikanth will be the second best player in the world and he could scale the summit if he manages to continue this rich vein of form in the remaining two Superseries in China and Hong Kong.
Padukone is said to be the only male player to reach the top of the ranking pyramid in the 1980s but that was before the ranking system was officially introduced by the International Badminton Federation.
This means that Srikanth has an opportunity to actually become the first Indian male player to be crowned world number one since he doesn’t have any points to defend as he didn’t play any tournament during the last year. And even a quarterfinal or better finish in the last three major tournaments of the year could help him close the gap on current leader and world champion Viktor Axelsen.
Even if he doesn’t achieve that in 2017, winning four Superseries titles, reaching five finals and climbing to world number two spot is a huge achievement for a 24-year-old who was not even serious about playing singles just six years ago.
And that is why his achievements needs to be appreciated in much the same way as we celebrate Nehwal and Sindhu’s success.
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