(Eds: Rerun after correcting date)Paris, Oct 29 (PTI) India's Kidambi Srikanth's dreamseason continued as he brushed aside the challenge of Japan'sKenta Nishimoto in straight games to win the French Open SuperSeries men's singles title, here today.
Having already completed a hat-trick of Super Seriestitles, Srikanth won his fourth title of the season.
Srikanth, seeded eight in the tournament, took just 34minutes to get the better of his Japanese opponent 21-14 21-13in the summit clash.
The win ensured Srikanth, who played his fifth SuperSeries final this season, bag his second consecutive title intwo weeks after winning the Denmark Open in Odense last week.
Srikanth, thus, became only fourth men's singles playerto win four or more Super Series titles in a calendar year.
Going by Srikanth's current form, it was expected to be aone-sided summit clash and it turned out to be one, except forthe first few points of the opening game which was a neck-and-neck fight between the two shuttlers.
It was Nishimoto, who started brightly to race to a 9-5lead before Srikanth fought back to draw level at 9-9.
From there on it was no looking back as the Indian usedhis court coverage and superior technique to take a 14-10lead.
Nishimoto did manage to take some points to reduce themargin to 15-14 before Srikanth used his experience at thehighest level to pocket six straight points and win the firstgame.
Srikanth continued his good form in the second game andwon five straight points to take a commanding 10-2 lead.
Nishimoto tried his best to force a comeback and managedto reduce the margin to 13-8 but the Indian showed his classand superiority in crunch situations to keep his lead intactand win the game 21-13 and claim his second consecutive titlein as many weeks. PTI SSC KHSSSC.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.
