New Delhi [India], January 19 (ANI): Following his India Open title win, the Paris Olympics gold medalist shuttler Viktor Axelsen stated that his sport didn’t really feel like “smooth sailing” in any respect and he struggled in the course of the begin of his match.
Paris Olympic champions Axelsen of Denmark and South Korea’s An Se Young registered thumping victories to clinch the lads’s and girls’s singles titles within the India Open 2025 on the KD Jadhav Indoor Hall on Sunday. Axelsen, enjoying in his sixth India Open remaining in 10 years, defeated Hong Kong’s Lee Cheuk Yiu 21-16, 21-8 to clinch his third India Open males’s singles crown whereas An Se Young had little bother in packing off Thailand’s Pornpawee Chochuwong 21-12, 21-9 within the girls’s singles remaining.
Speaking to the media after the match, Axelsen stated, “To be honest it didn’t feel like it was smooth sailing at all. I was struggling especially at the start of the game. I moved a little bit stiff in the defence especially, but my legs started coming. I started moving better and my defence started to be better also my offense. And then from there, I felt more and more confident. And then in the second game, I started to feel like my attack was sitting pretty well and I felt more and more comfortable.”In the doubles occasions, the unseeded Japanese mixture of Arisa Igarashi and Ayaka Sakuramoto capped off their giant-killing run with a scientific 21-15, 21-13 victory over South Korea’s Kim Hye Jang and Kong Hee Young within the girls’s doubles summit conflict. This is barely the third match collectively for the Japanese mixture with Igarashi, previously often known as Arisa Higashino, making a profitable shift to girls’s doubles from combined doubles.
However, Chinese second seeds Jiang Zhen Bang and Wei Ya Xin ended the run of the unseeded French mixture of Thom Gicquel and Delphine Delrue with a 21-18, 21-17 win within the combined doubles remaining.
Malaysian males’s doubles mixture of Goh Sze Fei and Nur Izzuddin discovered a well beyond South Korea’s Kim Won Ho and Seo Seung Jae 21-15, 13-21, 21-16 to clinch the title in the one match that went to the decider.
While An Se Young has been dominating the ladies’s singles circuit, the lads’s singles remaining was anticipated to be an in depth affair as Axelsen had misplaced to Lee within the opening spherical of the Malaysian Open final week and had struggled to shut out his quarterfinal and semi-final matches.
In the ultimate, the 2017 and 2019 champion didn’t begin effectively and was trailing 2-6 earlier than he began discovering the vary of his smashes. Lee, who had reached the ultimate final yr as effectively, tried to maintain attacking the backhand of the Dane however started making errors as soon as the eventual champion began retrieving all his attacking strokes.
Once Axelsen pocketed the opening sport, he merely ran away with the second to take house a prize purse of 66,500 US {dollars} and 11,000 rating factors.
“After this week, I feel my motivation is coming back. Since the Olympics, I had been struggling with injuries… This week has been very inconsistent for me mentally and game-wise but I am happy that I fought hard to win the title,” stated Axelsen, who thanked the followers for the vociferous assist he received all through the match.
The girls’s singles remaining was additionally a one-sided affair with Paris Olympic champion An Se Young of South Korea extending her dominance over Thailand’s Pornpawee Chochuwong with a 21-12, 21-9 in simply 39 minutes.
The 2023 Indian Open champion got here into the ultimate with a 9-0 head-to-head report towards Chochuwong and took management of the match within the preliminary few exchanges. She raced to an 11-4 lead after which held 11 sport factors. The Thai saved three of them however the hole was too massive for her to recuperate.
In the second sport, Young took a 7-1 lead after which managed the proceedings completely to proceed her all-win report of 2025 by including her second India Open title to the Malaysia Open crown she bagged final week. The 22-year-old Korean hasn’t dropped a single sport in her 10 matches this yr.
Results:Men’s singles:3-Viktor Axelsen (Den) bt Lee Cheuk Yiu (Hkg) 21-16, 21-8Women’s singles:1-An Se Young (Kor) bt 8-Pornpawee Chochuwong (Tha) 21-12, 21-9Men’s doubles:3-Goh Sze Fei/Nu Izzuddin (Mas) bt Kim Won Ho/Seo Seung Jae (Kor) 21-15, 13-21, 21-16Women’s doubles:Arisa Igarashi/Ayako Sakuramoto (Jpn) bt 8-Kim Hye Jang/Kong Hee Young (Kor) 21-15, 21-13Mixed doubles:2-Jiang Zhen Bang/Wei Ya Xin (Chn) bt Thom Gicquel/Delphine Delrue (Fra) 21-18, 21-17. (ANI)