NDA (II) 2017 General Ability Test · Question 92 of 150

Correct — C, B. Sai Praneeth. The Hyderabad player won the Singapore Open Superseries in April 2017 by beating his compatriot Kidambi Srikanth in an all-Indian final, losing the opening game and taking the next two, 17-21, 21-17, 21-12. It was his first Superseries title and made him the fourth Indian to win at that level, after Saina Nehwal, Kidambi Srikanth and P. V. Sindhu. An all-Indian final at a Superseries event was itself a first, and it came in the season in which Srikanth went on to take four Superseries titles.

• (a)Kidambi Srikanth — Srikanth was the beaten finalist at Singapore in 2017, not the winner. He had a remarkable season of his own that year, taking several Superseries titles, and the option is designed to catch anyone who remembers only that an Indian won and that Srikanth was the better-known name.
• (b)Lin Dan — The Chinese player, twice Olympic champion and five times world champion, was past the peak of his career by 2017 and was not the Singapore winner that year.
• (d)Kento Momota — The Japanese player had served a suspension in 2016 and was rebuilding his ranking during 2017; his dominant run, including the world titles of 2018 and 2019, came later. He did not win Singapore in 2017.

The Superseries was the top tier of the international badminton calendar, a set of Grade 2 tournaments run by the Badminton World Federation from 2007, split from 2011 into Superseries Premier and ordinary Superseries events. Winning one was the standard mark of a player having arrived at the highest level, which is why the count of Indian Superseries champions was tracked so closely in 2017.

Anchor this to the April 2017 exam year and note one change since. The Superseries circuit itself ended with the 2017 season; the Badminton World Federation announced a new structure in March 2017 and replaced it from 2018 with the BWF World Tour, so no Singapore Open Superseries has been played since. Sai Praneeth went on to take a bronze medal in the men's singles at the 2019 World Championships, losing to Kento Momota, and received the Arjuna Award in 2019.

• B. Sai Praneeth beat Kidambi Srikanth 17-21, 21-17, 21-12 in the 2017 Singapore Open Superseries men's singles final.
• He was the fourth Indian to win a Superseries title, after Saina Nehwal, Kidambi Srikanth and P. V. Sindhu.
• He also won the 2017 Thailand Open Grand Prix Gold, beating Jonatan Christie in the final.
• He took a men's singles bronze at the 2019 World Championships and received the Arjuna Award the same year.
• The Superseries circuit ran from 2007 to 2017 and was replaced by the BWF World Tour from 2018.

• Marking the better-known player rather than the actual winner when both finalists are Indian.
• Confusing a Superseries title with a World Championships or Olympic medal.
• Assuming the Superseries still exists; it was replaced by the World Tour from 2018.

NDA sets one or two sports current-affairs items in every paper, usually asking for the winner of a named tournament in a named year.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The 2017 Singapore Open Superseries men's singles final was contested between

  • (a)two Chinese players
  • (b)two Indian players
  • (c)an Indian and a Japanese player
  • (d)two Danish players

  Answer(b) two Indian players — B. Sai Praneeth beat Kidambi Srikanth in the first all-Indian Superseries final.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The BWF Superseries circuit was replaced from 2018 by the

  • (a)BWF Grand Prix Gold
  • (b)BWF World Tour
  • (c)BWF Masters Series
  • (d)BWF Champions League

  Answer(b) BWF World Tour — announced in March 2017 as the new top-tier structure.