India's Kidambi Srikanth's dream season continued as he brushed aside the challenge of Japan's Kenta Nishimoto in straight games to win the French Open Super Series men's singles title, here on Sunday.
Having already completed a hat-trick of Super Series titles, Srikanth won his fourth title of the season.
Srikanth, seeded eight in the tournament, took just 34 minutes to get the better of his Japanese opponent 21-14, 21-13 in the summit clash.
The win ensured Srikanth, who played his fifth Super Series final this season, bag his second consecutive title in two weeks after winning the Denmark Open in Odense last week.
Srikanth, thus, became only fourth men's singles player to win four or more Super Series titles in a calendar year.
Going by Srikanth's current form, it was expected to be a one-sided summit clash and it turned out to be one, except for the first few points of the opening game which was a neck- and-neck fight between the two shuttlers.
It was Nishimoto, who started brightly to race to a 9-5 lead before Srikanth fought back to draw level at 9-9. From there on it was no looking back as the Indian used his court coverage and superior technique to take a 14-10 lead.
Nishimoto did manage to take some points to reduce the margin to 15-14 before Srikanth used his experience at the highest level to pocket six straight points and win the first game.
Srikanth continued his good form in the second game and won five straight points to take a commanding 10-2 lead.
Nishimoto tried his best to force a comeback and managed to reduce the margin to 13-8 but the Indian showed his class and superiority in crunch situations to keep his lead intact and win the game 21-13 and claim his second consecutive title in as many weeks.
‘Not chasing top ranking’
Kidambi Srikanth might well be on course towards elusive World No 1 ranking but does not want to lose sleep over it.
His performance will see him jump higher in the ranking when the BWF ranking is released next week.
Asked about the numero uno status, he said:"I don't know (if I will be number 1). Definitely, I will go up higher in the rankings but I am not sure where I will be. I haven't been pursuing it."
Before Denmark and French titles, Srikanth had won back- to-back titles at Indonesia and Australia in June.
Srikanth said that world No 1 Viktor Axelsen of Denmark is still way ahead of him in terms of points.
"I think there is a lot of difference between me and Viktor (Axelsen) for sure before Denmark Open. I don't think I will be number one, I might improve a rank or two. It is good to be there definitely but I am not thinking about it now. I don't really have any tournament to defend anywhere, so I don't want to push myself for the ranking and just want to enjoy playing, that's it," he added.
Talking about the last couple of weeks, Srikanth said: "I am just happy with the way I performed in the last couple of weeks. There were some close matches. I feel I was little lucky to pull out those matches, otherwise I am pleased how it went for me."
With back-to-back titles at Denmark and France, Srikanth has sealed his place at the top of Destination Dubai rankings and would be a prime contender for the Super Series Final title in December.
Srikanth said he has not yet given it a though how he will plan his schedule. "Not really sure how I will go about the next tournaments, I have to go back and talk to my coach and decide what tournaments I will play before the Super Series finals," said the Indian.
Asked about his preparation for the match against his Japanese opponent, Srikanth said: "I think he (Nishimoto) has been playing really well throughout this week. He beat lee Chong Wei, he came from qualifiers and he has beaten Andersen.
"He played really well against him, so I was expecting a tough match, so I am just satisfied the way I played. In the quarters and semi-final, I felt I really started off really slow, so I wanted to make a good start, start off a little better than what I did before. He is an attacking and aggressive player, so I didn't want to give him any chance and it worked out for me."
The 25-year-old from Guntur played a long semi-final match against compatriot H S Prannoy and was a tad concerned how he would recover for the summit clash.