Kidambi Srikanth: It was more about winning a medal

Historymaking Kidambi Srikanth canrsquot get his World Championships silver medal achieved last Sunday out of his head Playing his first final since the 2019 India Open Srikanth went down fighting to Loh Kean Yew of Singapore 1521 2022 in the summit clash He bettered the World Championships feats of legendary Prakash Padukone bronze in 1983 B Sai Praneeth bronze in 2019 and Lakshya Sen whom he beat in the semifinal en route his finalIn a chat with midday the Gunturbased shuttler reflects on his historic feat his semis with Lakshya and overcoming a topsyturvy year disrupted by injuries and COVIDinduced lockdownsEdited excerpts from the interview Has the feeling sunk inThe feeling has definitely sunk in I am very happy I won a silver at the World Championships and I am not really thinking too much about the fact that I am the first menrsquos singles player from India to reach the final It was more about winning a medalHow will you sum up the yearI started off really well The first tournament I played was Thailand Open January 12 to 17 I injured my calf muscle but recovered and played the next tournament where I won my first round and then my roommate B Sai Praneeth tested positive Being a close contact I couldnrsquot participate I quarantined myself and later participated in the World Tour Finals where I lost all three matches but they all were very close games I couldnrsquot really play well at the All England but again tournaments got cancelled for sixeight months I couldnrsquot get time I trained really hard and the Sudirman Cup September 26 to October 3 happened Thatrsquos a long circuit from then and I played around eightnine tournaments I managed to reach two semis Hylo Open and Indonesia Masters a quarterfinal Orleans Masters and played some very good matches on the way and finally the World Championships which worked very well So yeah I am quite happy with the way the year has been It was a slow progress but Irsquom very happy with itThere were a lot of firsts that happened at the WorldsI am more happy that I played well and won a silver at the World Championships I am very happy with the way it has been for Indian badminton but more happy that I am part of the historic firstsHow do you rate LakshyaI have been following his performances for the last threeandahalf months we were together I see how well he has improved He played some very good matches in the last three months and entered the semis I was expecting a very tough fight in the semis If he can be consistent you can definitely see much better results from himYou won four Super Series in 2017 Post the knee injury your form was affected The pandemic created disruption What kept you goingI was injured but I was okay by January 2020 I was able to do well But unfortunately COVID19 happened and with the lockdown tournaments got cancelled Olympics got pushed And the same got repeated in 2021 as well I couldnrsquot qualify for Tokyo Olympics I knew that the World Championships were scheduled this year and there will be other tournaments in Europe So I was only focused in training and doing well in those tournaments I am happy that it worked out