Brimming with confidence after clinching the Polish Open alongwith women's doubles partner Pradnya Gadre, young Indian shuttler N Sikki Reddy has now set her eyes on breaking into World's top 16 and qualify for next year's Rio Olympics.
Brimming with confidence after clinching the Polish Open alongwith women's doubles partner Pradnya Gadre, young Indian shuttler N Sikki Reddy has now set her eyes on breaking into World's top 16 and qualify for next year's Rio Olympics.
Part of Indian women team's historic bronze medal feat at last year's Uber Cup and Asian Games, Sikki and Pradnya beat Canadian fourth seeds Alex Bruce and Phyllis Chan 21-16 21-18 in the summit clash yesterday to clinch the 41st Polish Open.
"It was great, we played some very good matches. We have lost to those pairs in previous tournaments and got opportunity to beat them this time. It was a good win," Sikki told PTI just before boarding the flight to India.
Asked about her targets, Sikki, who alongwith Pradnya ranks 49th in the world, said: "As this is Olympic selection year we want to be in top 16 and get selected for Olympics. We have beat Jwala (Gutta) and Ashwini (Ponnappa) (ranked 18th) in nationals also."
Sikki and Pradnya paired up after the latter split with 2010 Commonwealth Games gold medallist Ashwini Ponnappa but they were dealt a severe blow when the Maharashtra girl suffered an injury.
"Me and Pradnya had some bad time for few months due to Pradnya's injury. She had suffered from a tennis elbow. But she has recovered now. We played the nationals after her recovery and and this event. We are looking forward for other tournaments," said Sikki, adding that she will be focusing on India Open and Singapore Open next.
With her partner Pradnya sidelined with injury, Sikki paired up with S Poorvisha Ram and Tarun Kona and clinched the women's doubles and mixed doubles titles respectively at Uganda International last month.
The 21-year-old from Hyderabad also notched up the mixed doubles title at Romanian International early this month alongwith Tarun.
Sikki also won the women's double crown at Bangladesh Open with Pradnya last December, beside scooping the mixed doubles title of Tata Open with Manu Attri at Mumbai in the same month.
At the 35th National Games, Sikki and Rituparna Das won the gold in women's doubles, besides pocketing the silver alongwith Tarun in mixed doubles. Sikki and Pradnya also won the women's doubles title in Senior Nationals.
"It was very good. We did well in Bangladesh challenge, Tata open, Nationals, National games, Uganda, Romania and Polish. Quite a hectic schedule but my performance was good and consistent in all the tournaments," said the 21-year-old shuttler.
Asked about her mixed doubles partners, Sikki said: "Right now I'm focusing on women doubles and Manu is focusing on men's doubles. My tournaments and Manu's tournaments are getting mis-matched.
"Me and Tarun are also doing well. Mine and Tarun's plans are quite same. Tarun will be playing whatever I will be playing that's why we have just planned like this for an year. So we will be continuing now and want to get selected for Olympics and we are trying very hard for it," she signed off.
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