Indian shuttler Priiyanshu Rajawat claimed his first major title as he defeated Danish youngster Magnus Johannesen in the finals of the Orleans Masters in France. This was Priyanshu’s first title and also India’s first title this season.
Coming from the much famed Gopichand Academy, Priyanshu shared that the coaches there are very happy but his beloved Gopi sir had told him that this is just the beginning and he ain’t going to stop with just one title. He already has an eye on the fast-approaching Paris Olympics.
“Coaches were very happy. But Gopi sir said this is just the start, I have to win more, bigger medals. Just one title isn’t enough,” Priyanshu said after his final win.
Priyanshu started off brilliantly as he made Johannesen work very hard for each point. He used his array of shots to great effect and was forcing the young Dane to fight out for each point. He also used deception to good effect and carried forward an 11-8 lead.
Johannesen is a good defender but it was getting very tough for him as Priyanshu looked in great form and had that hunger to make it count. Hence he raced through to an 18-11 lead. He finishes off the first game in 19 minutes with some exceptional smashes and great deception.
Some errors crept in his play in the second game as Johannesen also upped the ante to equalize the scoreline. It was a tough fight between the two young shuttlers as rallies got longer and Priyanshu started committing more errors. He lost the second 19-21.
“I made a lot of mistakes in the second on the round-the-head smashes trying to get easy points. Plus he was lifting all my smashes, and I got tired. My feet weren’t moving by the end of it,” he reflected.
He started the third game with more determination and played at the net mostly and even his smashes got deeper and were catching Johannesen off guard. Hence, he quickly gained a 6-1 lead. However, as the game went on the rallies were longer and Johannesen kept on defending well as Piriyanshu got tired. He still had a substantial lead of 16-11. Despite all the tiredness in the play, he fought through and got to 20-13 and had seven match points. He fumbled three of them but finally got one and closed out the game.
“I played the third very calmly and the plan was to keep the shuttle in bounds. I was comfortable playing to his hands because he had started making errors that way,” Priyanshu added.
It all started with a win against the top seed Kenta Nishimoto of Japan. He admitted that the win against him gave him motivation and belief to trust in his game and that started this exceptional journey with him winning the trophy.
“That win gave me a lot of confidence that I could go all the way and win. Yesterday in the semis, I raised my level because I was desperate to play the final,” he spoke about his win against Nishimoto.
Priyanshu, who is currently the World Number 58 will be entering the top 40 after this week for winning his maiden Super 300 title.
