Chinese media plays down Srikanth, Saina wins

Beijing, Nov 17: Indian shuttlers Kidambi Srikanth and Saina Nehwal may have hit global headlines with their big wins against China's superstars of badminton but sadly they have not made it into the state-run Chinese media, which played down their herculean achievement.

Top English dailies like "China Daily" and Global Times which have big sports pages found little or no space for the Indian duo's whitewash of Chinese stars in USD 7 lakhs China Open, while it found a little mention in the sports programme of the English CCTV.

"China Daily" completely ignored the event, while "Global Times" published a picture of China's superstar badminton player trying to reach a Srikanth volley. The event was telecast live on the CCTV sports channels with locals cheering their Chinese stars.

But the media coverage has gone cold once China suffered a whitewash. State run Xinhua news agency ran a brief story after yesterday's match saying "Lan Dan stunned by Indian young shuttler Srikanth in China Open final" failing to make his 6th champion of the tournament.

"I tried hard in this event. I believed I played well this time because I'm just recovering from the injury," Lin said. "The problem was I did not move fast enough today," he said.

"I did not have myself trained systematically after the Asian Games. But I'm confident I'll be better in the coming 3-4 years," said Lin.

Srikanth told Xinhua that it was his first time to play in the final in Super-series. "It seems my dream comes true. I'm so excited to play 100 per cent and won my first title. I'd like to take it as a gift for my coach, for it is his birthday today," he said. It briefly noted Saina's victory saying that she a beat Akane Yamaguchi from Japan 21-12, 22-20.

PTI