Indian shuttler K Srikanth dished out a gritty performance to stun World No.1 Korean Son Wan Ho to reach the finals of the USD 1,000,000 Indonesia Super Series Premier on Saturday.
The 24-year-old from Guntur fought ferociously to outclass Son 21-15, 14-21, 24-22 in an energy-sapping men’s singles match that lasted an hour and 12 minutes.
Srikanth had a 2—4 head-to-head record against Son, having lost to the Korean four times in the last four meetings, but all that didn’t matter today as he survived a battle of attrition at the Jakarta Convention Center (JCC).
The World No. 22 player will next face Japanese qualifier Kazumasa Sakai in the finals on Sunday.
This is the fourth Super Series final for Srikanth, who had reached the summit clash in Singapore in April and won the 2014 China Open and 2015 India Open.
Earlier, giant-killer H S Prannoy played his heart out but eventually ran out of steam against Japanese Kazumasa Sakai to go down narrowly in the other semifinal.
Prannoy, who had shocked Olympic silver-medallist Lee Chong Wei and gold-medallist Chen Long in the last two days, got to the match point five times but he could not convert to eventually go down 21—17, 26—28, 18—21 in a 77 —minute men’s singles match.
Corrections & clarifications:
The above article earlier said the 24-year-old player (Srikant) fought ... to outclass the Korean player Son 21-15, 18-21, 24-22 . The correct scoreline is 21-15, 14-21, 24-22 .
