Star Indian shuttler HS Prannoy won the Malaysia Masters title on Sunday. He claimed his maiden BWF World Tour title and also the first singles crown of the year for India. Prannoy ended a six-year-long title drought with a three-game win over China's Weng Hong Yang. The 30-year-old Indian registered a 21-19 13-21 21-18 victory against China's world number 34 Weng Hong Yang, a 2022 Asian Championships bronze medallist in the game that lasted 94 minutes.
World number 9 Prannoy, advanced to the final after his opponent Christian Adinata of Indonesia conceded the game following a nasty knee injury. Prannoy was leading 19-17 when Adinata lost his footing while landing after a jump return and his left knee buckled and the Indonesian shuttler was left in pain.
In the last two years, Prannoy has been the most consistent Indian player in the circuit and yet he was not able to weave it all together in a week to win a big title in the BWF World Tour events. On Sunday, all his hard work paid off as the world number nine Prannoy finally broke the jinx, dishing out a superlative performance against the 23-year-old from China in a battle of attrition.
When it comes to PV Sindhu, she couldn't make it to the women's singles finals after suffering a 14-21 17-21 loss to Indonesia's Gregoria Mariska Tunjung in the semifinals. It was a second successive loss for Sindhu following seven wins against Mariska.
Earlier Srikanth Kidambi suffered a disappointing defeat in the quarterfinals against Christian Adinata of Indonesia. Kidambi won the first set by 21-16 to take a confident lead but Adinata stunned the Indian ace shuttler by dominating the second set by 16-21 and the third set by 11-21 to finish the match in just 57 minutes. Another shuttler, Lakshya Sen lost to Angus Ng Ka Long of Hong Kong and bowed out of the competition in the round of 16. He ended his campaign with straight sets loss against Angus 14-21, 19-21.
