Viktor Axelsen wins Indonesia Open title

Bali. Olympic champion Viktor Axelsen defeated Lo Keen Yu of Singapore to win the Indonesia Open badminton men’s singles title. Second seed Axelsen of Denmark won 21-13, 9-21, 21-13.

Low made history despite the loss, becoming the first player from Singapore to reach the final of the tournament.

Indonesia’s Marcus F Guidon and Kevin S Sukamujo won the doubles title.

Talking about the performance of Indian players in this tournament, two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu was defeated by former world champion Rachanok Intanon of Thailand in the semi-finals of the Indonesia Open Super 1000 tournament. Sindhu, seeded third, was beaten 15-21, 21-9, 21-14 by world number eight Ratchanok in 54 minutes. This was Sindhu’s semi-final loss for the third time in a row. She also lost semi-finals at the Tokyo Olympics before losing semi-finals at the Indonesia Masters last week and the French Open in October.

Sixth seeded doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also bowed out of the Super 1000 tournament. The world-ranked pair lost 16-21 18-21 to top seed Indonesian pair of Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjay Sukamuljo in the semi-finals.

It was the Indian pair’s 10th consecutive defeat against the world number one pair, two-time former All England Open champions and current Asian Games gold medalist pair. Thus ended the Indian campaign in the $850,000 tournament. World No. 7 Sindhu had a 4-6 record before this match against Ratchanok. She had also lost the last two matches.

Starting well, Sindhu quickly took an 8-3 lead. Ratchanok made the difference 9-10 and Sindhu had a single point lead till the break. After the break, Sindhu scored three points in a row and won the first game by denying Ratchanok a chance. After this, in the second game, Rachanok took an 11-7 lead till the break.

He also won the second game by scoring nine points out of the next ten. In the third game, Sindhu made several mistakes which the Thai player took advantage of. Sindhu last reached the final of the Swiss Open.