Swiss delight for Srikanth

Young Indian shuttler Kidambi Srikanth clinched the Swiss Grand Prix Gold championship title after overcoming a strong challenge from Viktor Alexson in a hard-fought men's singles final here on Sunday. World No. 4 Srikanth showed nerves of steel to prevail over his Danish opponent, ranked sixth in the world, 21-15, 12-21, 21-14 in the thrilling summit clash of the $120,000 event as the contest lasted 47 minutes.

Srikanth, who created a major upset in the final of the 2014 China Open Super Series Premier by beating five-time World champion and two-time Olympic gold medallist lin Dan, kept his nerves to make a strong comeback after going down tamely in the second game. The top two seeds started off positively in the opening game, not sparing an inch to each other. It was a closely fought affair till 8-8 before the Indian managed to take a slender lead at the St Jakobshalle stadium here.

The 22-year-old from Andhra Pradesh played sensibly thereafter and never let the advantage slip. He maintained an edge over his opponent to finally wrap off the first game rather comfortably. However, Alexson, got his act together in the second game and put up such a dominating show, that it sent Srikanth looking for covers.

In fact, it turned out to be a cake walk for the Danish player. From being tied 2-2, Alexson broke away and simply surged ahead 7-2. He kept extending the advantage and the margin became impossible for the Indian to reduce.

Alexson eventually sealed it off 21-12 to force a decider.

In the third game, Srikanth straight away opened up a 3-0 lead and then made it 4-1 but Alexson was not the one to get intimidated and he levelled the scores at 4-4 before gaining a few more points to surge ahead. Srikanth, however, soon drew parity at 9-9 and it moved on like that till 13-13 before the top seeded Indian shuttler slowly gained lead and had three points in a row.

Alexson earned another one but the Indian grabbed the next five points on the trot to etch his name as the winner of the competition.

Earlier, Srikanth had won a Grand Prix Gold title in Thailand Open in 2013, while finished runners-up at the 2014 India Open Grand Prix Gold event in lucknow.

“I'm extremely happy with the way I have been playing over the last few months. The matches I lost in lucknow and Birmingham were both very close, and I've taken out lots of positives from the experiences,” Srikanth said. “I stayed positive in the final today, and maintained a high level of play all along. I'm grateful for the support I've received from everyone along the way, including my parents, my coach Gopi sir, the team at GoSports Foundation, and my apparel sponsors li-Ning.”