India's HS Prannoy made history on Sunday as he clinched the Malaysia Masters badminton title after defeating China's Weng Hongyang in a marathon final which lasted for three games.
Prannoy outclassed Weng 22-19 13-21 21-18 to clinch his first ever BWF World Tour title and the first singles crown of the year for India.
This is also a great start for Prannoy in the Olympic qualification ranking time period.
Prannoy was instrumental in India's epic Thomas Cup victory last year but an individual title has eluded him since the 2017 US Open Grand Prix Gold.
The Kerala shuttler had come close to breaking his title drought when he reached the finals at Swiss Open last year and signed off at the semifinal stage in Malaysia and the Indonesia Super 1000.
Prannoy has battled a series of injuries and health issues before turning his career around in the back end of 2021.
2 years of consistency finally pays off for Prannoy
In the last two years, he has been the most consistent Indian player in the circuit and yet he was not able to weave it all together in a week to win a big title in the BWF World Tour events.
On Sunday, all his hard work paid off as the world number nine Prannoy finally broke the jinx, dishing out a superlative performance against the 23-year-old from China in a battle of attrition.
This week, Prannoy gave ample display of his physical and mental fortitude as he outfoxed his opponents -- world number five Chou Tien Chen, All England champion Li Shi Feng and Japan's Kenta Nishimoto -- in three games.
(To receive our E-paper on WhatsApp daily, please click here.  To receive it on Telegram, please click here. We permit sharing of the paper's PDF on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.)
