With their dominant wins on Saturday, Kidambi Srikanth and B Sai Praneeth set up an all-Indian final at the Singapore Open. Till now only three countries -- China, Indonesia and Denmark -- had had two of their players contesting a men's final at a Superseries event.
Praneeth coasted into his maiden Superseries final after defeating South Korea's Lee Dong Keun 21-6, 21-8 in 38 minutes. He thereby became the first Indian to reach the men's singles final in Singapore since it became a Superseries event in 2007.
Praneeth, who was appearing in his first semi-final at a Superseries event, got off to a sublime start by winning the first 10 points of the match and leading 11-1 at the changeover in the first game. He continued in the same vein and wrapped up the game in 17 minutes as his opponent could win only five points after the changeover.
Lee's struggles against the world No. 30 continued in the second game and he trailed 4-11 at the changeover. Praneeth led by a comfortable margin throughout and closed out the game in 20 minutes.
In the previous three rounds, Praneeth had played three straight three-game matches, all lasting over an hour. The Indian had lost in straight games the last time he played Lee two years ago.
In the second semi-final, Srikanth roused himself after a poor start against Indonesia's Anthony Sinisuka Ginting in the first game and strode into the final with a typical, aggressive performance.
World No. 26 Ginting pounced on Srikanth's tentative approach at the beginning of the match and took a 9-4 lead. Srikanth, however, made a surprising recovery and, aided by a few errors from his opponent, even went into the changeover a point ahead. Riding on a run of 10 consecutive points won, Srikanth closed out the game in 17 minutes.
The momentum having swung his way, the hard-smashing Indian ran to a 7-1 lead in the second game. After leading 11-6 at the changeover, Srikanth seemed to go a bit easy and allowed Ginting to make a comeback and reduce the deficit to 14-16. But Srikanth upped his game again and winning five consecutive points from there took him to his third Superseries final.
He won 21-13, 21-14 in 42 minutes.