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What’s the story?
Ahead of the season-ending World Superseries Finals, the India No. 1 shuttler, Srikanth KIdambi has been adjudged the ‘Best Dressed Male Player’ at the 2017 BWF Gala Awards Night that was held in Dubai on Monday. The ‘Best Dressed Female Player’ award went to the World No. 1 Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei.
This was India’s only win at the annual BWF awards this year. An elated Srikanth later took to Twitter to announce the news and thanked noted designer, Raghavendra Rathore for the outfit.
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In case you didn’t know
Last year, PV Sindhu was conferred on the ‘Most Improved Player’ award following her historic silver medal at the Rio Olympics and her maiden Superseries title win at the China Open.
The heart of the matter
Indian shuttlers were in contention in three other categories as well for the prestigious awards. Srikanth himself was vying for the ‘Male Player of the Year’ award after a scintillating season that saw him winning four Superseries titles. World Championships silver medallist PV Sindhu was one of the contenders for the ‘Female Player of the Year’ award while 17-year-old doubles player, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy found himself as one of the nominees for the ‘Most Promising Player of the Year award.
However, none could taste glory in these categories. The irrepressible Indonesian men’s doubles duo of Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo became the recipients of the ‘Male Player of the Year’ award.
Chinese ace Chen Qingchen, who is currently the numero uno player in both women’s doubles and mixed doubles, was adjudged the 'Best Female Player of the Year'. Rising Chinese star, Chen Yufei, who has already broken into the top 10 of women’s singles, deservedly got the ‘Eddy Choong Most Promising Player of The Year Award’. Japanese women’s doubles pair of Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota won in the ‘Most Improved Players of the Year’ category.
What’s next?
Srikanth has a tough assignment on the first day of the World Superseries Finals as he faces the world champion, Viktor Axelsen on Wednesday.
Author’s take
Winning any award is always special. Hopefully, this will motivate the World No. 4 Srikanth to continue with the on-court fireworks that he has displayed all year.
