2019 Indonesia Open is nearing its end and Indian badminton fans have been treated to the same story; no Indian men's badminton player in the semi finals of a Tier 1 BWF tournament. What has happened to the Indian men's shuttlers? There are a lot of questions from fans and very little answers from the players. A statement by the commentator during the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
Is Srikanth still the best Indian player in the circuit ?
Kidambi Srikanth and Sameer Verma are the highest ranked players in the circuit in the 9th and 12th position respectively. Srikanth's rise in the badminton was meteoric and unprecedented in modern times - but here we are in 2019 and a year away from the Olympics, his steep decline is at the same pace of how he had rose, if not worse. His only final appearance in a Super Series was in March in his home ground where he unsurprisingly lost to Axelsen against whom he has a 1-6 win-loss record.But everything since then has been a downhill. The pattern continued in 2018, with Srikanth failing to qualify for the World Tour Finals where top 8 players in the calendar year qualify leaving Sameer Verma, who had barely managed to qualify for it by winning the Syed Modi title, thus making him the only Indian to qualify for the year end tournament.It goes without saying that 2017 was his best year, when he became only the fourth player to win four men's singles Super series titles in a calendar year.
2019 was a tad better for Srikanth as he progressed to quarter final in most tournaments, but ran into elite players in every tournament.In the same year Srikanth had been knocked out very early in all elite Super 1000 tournaments. He was knocked out in the first round in All England Open, a third round exit against lower seeded Daren Liew in the World Championships, and a second round exit in Indonesia Open.
After this tournament he moved to the quarter finals in Singapore Open and again ran into world number 1 Momota, but this time managed to push him to 3 sets - an improvement from his previous meeting in All England.He was knocked out in the All England Open by the World no 1 Momota in the quarter finals and was knocked out in the Indian Open final by reigning Olympics bronze medalist Axelsen which was followed by a quarter final exit after being handed a defeat by current Olympic gold medalist Chen Long.