India’s Kidambi Srikanth clinched the Swiss Grand Prix Gold badminton championship title after overcoming a strong challenge from Viktor Alexson in a hard-fought men's singles final in Basel on Sunday.
World No. 4 Srikanth showed nerves of steel to prevail over his Danish opponent 21-15, 12-21, 21-14 in the thrilling summit clash of the $120,000 event.
In a contest that lasted 47 minutes, Srikanth held 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.
The 22-year-old from Andhra Pradesh played sensibly thereafter and never let the advantage slip. He maintained an edge over the World No 6 to finally wrap off the first game rather comfortably.
However, the second seeded Alexson, got his act together in the second game and put up a dominating show. 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 the game 21-12 to stretch the match to a decider.
In the third game, Srikanth straight away opened up a 3-0 lead and then made it 4-1 but Alexson, not the one to get intimidated, levelled the scores at 4-4 before gaining a few more points to surge ahead.
Srikanth, however, soon drew parity at 9-9 and kept the momentum in his favour 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 claim the title.
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.
