What’s Up With Srikanth ?

The first tournament of 2020 the Indonesia Masters saw Srikanth exiting in the first round against the Indonesian SH Rushtavito, who had beaten Srikanth in their second consecutive time against each other, yet again, at Thailand Masters 2020 in the first round. While Indian Badminton’s Men singles Department has other names like Sameer Verma, Sai Praneeth, HS Prannoy, Parupalli Kashyap etc the fact is Srikant does hold a much higher place due to his consistent performances back in 2017-2018 and obviously him securing the World No.1 spot back in 2018, kind of made him have more attention and expectations of the people than his compatriots.

Kidambi, the former World No.1,even though for a week, seems to be struggling hard since the commonwealth games 2018. We have seen him display a fine quality of badminton against the legends like Lin Dan and other top players, he is also one of the few countable players to have won four super series tittles in a year (2017). Srikant has over 10 tittles under his belt however, as of lately he seems to be having a hard time getting past the pre quarters even against the lower ranked players.

In 2019, The Best result for the Former No.1 was the runners up place at the India Open. Since then Kidambi Had been seen losing out in the first or Second rounds even at the hands of much lower ranked players. Now a lot of folks put the draw and luck into the game and say “Oh Kidambi had Momota in his first round” or “Its just bad Luck that Kidambi faced Chou Tien Chen in the second round”, Which to me sounds as good of an excuse as failure. Failure by virtue isn’t something one should be shy of because it helps us improve and learn, however, In Kidambi’s case it seems neither is he bringing in any changes to his game nor is he working on his constant habit of unforced errors and with this repetitive display of his game it seemed to have become an easily read script for his opponents which we have been seeing for a period of over a year and a half.

It won’t be an over the top thing to say that the MS ( Men Singles ) department of Badminton is equally hard, if not more than, as the WS ( Woman singles ) department. Where on one side we have legends like Lin Dan and Chen Long still trying hard to get their third Olympic Medal this year and on the other we have the resurgence of twice World Champion Kento Momota who seems to be the card to topple for others including Srikanth. Kidambi though, seems to have either lost his mojo for the sport or takes too much pressure of the players he has lost to in the past.

Srikanth could possibly learn a few things about coping up with the pressure and variety of play from his compatriot Sai praneeth who despite being an unfavored medalist at the BWF World Championships 2019,managed to shock the much hyped young Indonesians Jonathan Christie ( Asian Games Champion ) and Anthony Sinisuka Ginting,Who is in top 5 and is known to be the hardest cookie to crack for the World No.1 Kento Momota. Sai Praneeth had beaten these two indonesians in consecutive days to earn himself the best medal of his career at the Prestigious World Championships at Basel.

Kidambi Definitely has that “X” factor which could possibly lead him to his once glorious form however, just by putting statements like “playing hard, train hard” or “Come Back Stronger” on Social Media won’t be much of a help,unless he really does put weight to his words because let alone top 10, with such a disastrous form its hard to predict Kidambi even in the top 20 and the hopes of an Olympic medal from Indian MS department still seems to be a distant dream or rather a wishful thinking.