‘Happy with my show, need to be more consistent’

Sydney : Kidambi Srikanth said he is happy with the performance he delivered against the reigning world champion Chen Long in the summit clash. “As a whole I played very well, but since I arrived in Sydney I have gastroenteritis and have had diarrhoea, so I have not been at my best. Since I made the final I wanted to continue to play as well as I could,” an ecstatic Srikanth said after the victory. “It’s just that I’m not thinking of winning or losing. I missed competitive badminton and wanted to enjoy the match. Because I missed that period of competitive badminton, I wanted to hang in and play as many matches as possible,” he added. Throwing light on how the match panned out for him, the 24-year-old said, “The conditions are such that you can’t really attack, it’s a bit slow, you have to be prepared for a long match. In all the breaks, I had the advantage, the coach told me to keep it going, not to make simple mistakes and allow him back into the match. My attack worked really well.” The Guntur-born shuttler revealed that he had a psychological edge over his famed opponent after winning the first game. In the second game, he did well to win long rallies which boosted his confidence more. “There was a long rally early in the second game and after I won that I got more confident. If he had won it he would’ve kept doing it (rallies),” Srikanth explained. “I’m just happy to be doing well for now,” he signed off.