Kidambi Srikanth forged years of hard work to earn a World Championships silver medal and the shuttler promises to work even harder in the future.

“In few tournaments, I played really well and in others I couldn’t play well this year… but again, to reach the final of a World Championship is something that I really worked hard for, and I am really happy,” Srikanth said after his final loss to Loh Kean Yew of Singapore.

“I will try to continue to work hard, it is a process and there are many other tournaments next year… it is a very big year, next year. So I will try to stay positive.”

Reflecting on his performance in the final, Srikanth said: “It has been a great week. Even today I had my chances in both the games. I had a healthy lead in first game and, even in second game, I had 18-16 cushion. I was not able to finish the match today. Loh played really well,” he said.

“There are a lot of things to learn from this, so definitely I will work on this and try and get better for next tournaments.”

Lakshya’s target

Lakshya Sen, who had to settle for a bronze after his semi-final loss to Srikanth, has vowed to go for the gold next time, even as the young shuttler trains his eyes on the

All England Championships and 2022 Commonwealth Games.

“I played a lot of good matches, faced some tough opponents, even in the semi-final it was a close match, it could have gone in anybody’s favour. Next time I will go for the gold,” Lakshya said.

(Written with agency inputs)