Wishesh magazine january 2018 Wishesh magazine january 2018 | Page 38

COVER STORY The 24 year old won the French Open, the Denmark Open, the Australian Open and the Indonesia Cup. Before Srikanth, only badminton legend Lin Dan, his Chinese compatriot Chen Long and Malaysian star Lee Chong Wei had won four Super Series men’s singles titles in a single season. The world No 4 finished runner-up at the Singapore Open where he lost to compatriot B Sai Praneeth. 2- PV Sindhu: 38 After her silver in the 2016 Rio Olympics, the world No 3 continued her glorious run, winning the India Open Super Series, the Korea Open Super Series and the Syed Modi Grand Prix Gold. She narrowly missed out at three other events, ending up second best in the Glasgow World Championship, the Dubai Super Series final and the Hong Kong Open. She produced a superlative performance to defeat reigning Olympic champion Carolina Marin and win her maiden India Open Super Series title in April. In August, her gallant effort WWW.WISHESH.COM | JANUARY 2018 to become India’s first World champion ended in a heart- wrenching 19-21, 22-20, 20- 22 defeat to Nozomi Okuhara after an epic final that lasted 109 minutes. Kidambi Srikanth Sindhu extracted revenge soon after, beating Okuhara in the summit clash at the Korea Open Super Series in September. 3- Pankaj Advani: Pankaj enjoyed another stellar year on the green baize. He won a couple of world titles, taking his world title count to a massive 18. Pankaj also became the only Indian cueist to win the national billiards and snooker titles. In November, he won two titles at the IBSF World Billiards and Snooker Championships in Doha. He clinched his 17th World title after thrashing arch-rival Mike Russell in the IBSF World Billiards final. In the process, Pankaj defended the 150-up format title he won in Bengaluru last year. With only a day’s gap to switch from billiards to snooker, Pankaj outclassed Amir Sarkhosh for yet another world title. Pankaj Advani 4- Virat Kohli: India’s cricket captain scored 2,818 runs across all three formats in international cricket in 2017, the third highest ever in a calendar year, behind Kumar Sangakkara (2,868 runs in 2014) and Ricky Ponting (2,833 runs in 2005).