Ecstatic after clinching a maiden Grand Prix title at the Brazil Open, Indian mixed doubles pair of N Sikki Reddy and Pranaav Jerry Chopra has now set their sights on winning a medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
The Indian duo, ranked World No. 65, prevailed 21-15 21-16 over Canadian second seeds Toby Ng and Rachel Honderich in a 37-minute final on Sunday night.
“No words to express and I’m so so happy. This title will boost my confidence and make me work harder for many more titles. Me and Jerry were performing very well. We beat world No. 10 in India super series and lost a close match to World No. 3 in Singapore Super Series,” Sikki said.
“But after that Jerry injured his shoulder so we didn’t play for 3 months and after that this was the first tournament so this title will give us a lot of confidence to come back to the previous form and will motivate us a lot.
“People will be watching us now so we have to work really hard and be focused. We have kept the target to come into the top 30-20 in the world this year. We have only 4-5 tournaments left which is very important for us. So next year we will focus on super series tournaments and aim a medal in Commonwealth Games,” she added.
Talking about the final match, Pranaav said: “It wasn’t an easy match as we knew about Toby who was with us in the same team in PBL and we were aware that he is good so we had prepared ourself well before the match. Initially it was going equal till the first break at 11 and then after the break we could get a lead and maintain till the end.”
