CHENNAI: Young shuttler Sathish Kumar Karunakaran notched up the biggest win of his career yet as he defeated world No. 7 Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei 21-13, 21-14 in the Malaysia Masters men’s singles opening round in Bukit Jalil on Wednesday.
His dominance throughout the contest was a highlight; he pressed on the accelerator from the get-go to set the tone early. The 24-year-old Sathish has added variety to his game over the past year, and his efforts have paid off. The Tamil Nadu shuttler used jump smashes and his receptive skills to perfection, putting Chou in trouble.
Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!While Sathish has been inconsistent this season so far, this victory should do a world of good and restore his confidence. “I was searching for the breakthrough for quite some time and I am happy to have recorded my biggest win. What went in my favour was that I controlled the game better. For example, going to the net quickly, and that gave me an advantage,” Sathish told TOI from Malaysia.
Who's that IPL player?Sathish moved from training with Ajit Wijetilekk to working with his junior coach, Jivananthan Nair from Malaysia. “It has been a year under Jiva sir and everything is working well. My choices of shots have become much better than what they were earlier and that is making a big difference,” Sathish added.
For Jivananthan, the latest result in singles was not a surprise, but he did not expect his ward to register a convincing victory. “We have been working on quite a few technical aspects, refining some parts of the game. Sathish was always a very straightforward player. He had to add variation to his game to compete against the top-10 players. And that is exactly what I did.
“When you add variations, what happens is that consistency tends to drop for a while. It is a process. We knew that the process would take time and we were prepared for it. It was good that he was able to put those variations into good use as his opponent was not ready for it,” Jivananthan said.
Sathish took a break from competitive action after the Sudirman Cup and shifted his focus to training. Considering the packed schedule, he had to pick and choose tournaments. “I skipped the Chinese Taipei Open and I will not be playing the Singapore Open next week as well. I did not have the option to take a break earlier and wanted to represent my country in the Badminton Asia Championships and Sudirman Cup.”
Like in singles, Sathish has had an inconsistent run in mixed doubles. On Wednesday, after his singles win, the Sathish-Aadya Variyath duo lost 15-21, 16-21 to Indonesia’s Yustin Mulia and Ayu Kusumawati in the round-of-32. Although Sathish is going through a rough patch in mixed doubles, he believes that playing doubles is helping his singles game.
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