Denmark Super Series: Attacking Kidambi Srikanth stuns Viktor Axelsen in three games

Kidambi Srikanth caused mental mayhem for World Champion Viktor Axelsen in beating the Dane 14-21, 22-20, 21-7 on Friday to make the semifinals of Denmark Open. Winner of two Super Series titles this season, Srikanth had gone off the boil at the World Championships where Axelsen picked his maiden crown. But Srikanth pounced on the net often and was assured in his attacking play at Axelsens’s home event, to record a major upset in front of the partisan crowd.

It was Srikanth’s ability to cut off all that altitude on his strokes and keep the shuttle flat and low, that literally brought down the high flying Dane who has been in the form of his life these past few months. Like a kite runner, slashing off and bringing down rival kites, Srikanth killed the flight on the shuttle successfully to deny the world champ Axelsen a home semifinal.

Srikanth is both intuitive in badminton and boasts of shots that can make use of his fast-processing shuttle smarts, to implement plans that his coaches sketch out. Against the long and looming Axelsen, the plan was to take the vertical advantage out of the equation.

There’s nothing tall players hate more than bending low. Gopichand knows this particularly well because it’s the biggest challenge he faces when putting together Sindhu’s game. Tall players have a natural high centre of gravity that wrecks havoc with both balance and low defense. This low defense can turn nightmarish as was exploited by the 24 year old Indian against his opponent, a year younger and many inches taller.

Srikanth would stub the height in the shuttle, displaying immense control in limiting the field of play to very close to (and just above) the net.

So his famed attack was channelled towards keeping the shuttle as low as possible, denying Axelsen any freedom to start wheeling his long arms. Tosses and lifts were kept to a bare minimum to nip every attempt of an Axelsen smash. And as the game progressed Srikanth’s feet moved fast, picking the shuttle early and ensuring that it stayed low piling the discomfort of retrieving by bending and lunging on the Dane.

High shots went near missing by the time Srikanth shrugged off the first set deficit and a 21-7 scoreline in the decider pointed to how effectively Srikanth had cramped Axelsen for height on a near perfect day.

The 24-year-old Indian unleashed a flurry of down the line smashes deep on Axelsen’s forehand in overturning the first set deficit. The offense was potent in both pace and precision, but Srikanth gained confidence for what was a whiplash of a decider after some gritty retrieving of his own in the second set.

It was while trailing in the opener that Srikanth had made his intent clear with some angular cross court flicks at the net. They didn’t yield him immediate points as he struggled with the drift, but he was chipping away at the home contender’s confident striding with some devilish deception of the wrist.

Viktor – a defensive automaton helped by his massive reach, was wrong footed twice and even got himself into a tangle and landed awkwardly midway through the mid set. Srikanth, seeded 8th, would then stay in the match keeping the margins narrow snapping at the heels of the 23-year-old second seed.

Coach Gopichand till then sitting for the HS Prannoy match would hop into the coach’s seat soon after the opener, and guide Srikanth through what was a mental battle. Srikanth would first come up trumps in the battle of the net with his tight dribbles and then push the attack to the rear putting Viktor’s forehand defense to deep scrutiny. Playing the lines and upping the pace, Srikanth would expose a vulnerability and then twist the knife deeper widening the lead in the third.

Axelsen fell apart under the sustained pressure and exited his home tournament, collapsing in a pile of errors. Srikanth looks good to make the Denmark finals and resume his Super Series title conquests this year. Slow to start he might ve been, but this wasn’t down to him being inconsistent. Once he got a measure of the tosses and lifts in the windy stadium, and killed off both, Srikanth was right on top of the best retriever currently in world badminton.

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