India’s only men’s singles shuttler at the 2016 Rio Olympics – Kidambi Srikanth – put up a mighty fight but it was still not enough to overcome the two-time Olympic champion Lin Dan of China in the quarter-finals on Wednesday.
The World No. 11 went down fighting 6-21, 21-11, 18-21 in 1 hour 4 minutes.
The 23-year-old from Guntur took a long time to settle into the match. Srikanth looked shaky and overawed by the occasion in his first appearance in an Olympic quarter-final.
The Chinese star was quick to capitalize on it and it took him just 16 minutes to grab a completely one-sided opening game. But Srikanth had defeated the former World No. 1 in their most recent showdown at the 2014 China Open final and was not entirely unfamiliar with the tactics needed to tackle Lin.
As the southpaw started making more and more errors in the second game with Srikanth thriving as his fiery smashes found their mark to help the Indian surge to 11-5 at the mid-game interval.
Brave exit: Srikanth Kidambi.
Srikanth did not relent even after the break. Poised and confident, he marched through the second game to level the contest at one game apiece.
In the decider, it was Lin Dan who jumped out to an early lead. However his Srikanth had moved into a slim 11-8 advantage by the break.
Like all champions show their very best under pressure, Lin too produced some exceptional dropshots that slowly took the match away from Srikanth.
With Srikanth’s exit, women’s singles player PV Sindhu now remains the only Indian badminton player still in contention at Rio. She will be seen in action in the semi-finals versus the World No. 6 Nozomi Okuhara of Japan.