Ecstatic on their first GP win, Sikki & Pranaav aim to win medal at 2018 Commonwealth Games

MIXED DOUBLES PAIR Sikki Reddy and Pranaav Jerry Chopra are feeling ecstatic after winning their first Grand Prix title in Brazil. But the duo wants to keep away from complacency as they are hungry to win more titles. The promising mixed pair has stated that their aim is to win medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

"No words to express and I'm 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 to PTI.

"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."

Being the top seeded pair in the tournament, they defeated second seeds Toby Ng/Rachel Honderich 21-15, 21-16 in the finals to clinch the title.

Sharing his thoughts about the final match in Brazil, 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."

While Sikki won five International Challenger titles last year, Pranaav along with his men's doubles parnter Akshay Dewalkar had come close to win their first GPG at the Syed Modi tournament 

"I wanted to win that match and we were so close to it, obviously lot of disappointment for not being able to finish on the winning side but we were very happy with the way we played throughout the tournament and it surely gave us a lot of confidence to face the top pairs in tournaments," Pranaav said.

Sikki spoke about how the two came together as a pair,

"When Tan became India coach only then we got to know what actual mixed doubles is, it is totally different from before. He only made this partnership and he taught us how to play professional mixed double. So we are in safe hands and we both just started 9 months back and we are already in top 50 in just 7 tournaments."

Pranaav too iterated on the same lines,

"It was the decision of our coach Tan who decided to pair us up as when he came I had been only playing men's doubles and he asked me to start playing mixed again and that it would be good to pair me with Sikki."

The duo were in praise of doubles coach Kim Tan Her.

"Tan has played a major role by getting in specific training for mixed doubles and making us learn the skills and tactics for mixed and he is the one who made this pair and also pushes us to work harder in the training and plan our tournaments accordingly," said Pranaav.

Sikki added,

"He works very hard and we are very thankful that we have got him, he motivates us a lot and makes us work very hard and when we cannot push he is the one who believes in us and pushes us."