Rio 2016: Kidambi Srikanth is Lin Dan and dusted

Kidambi Srikanth played his heart out before going down fighting against two-time defending champion Lin Dan in the quarter-finals of the men’s singles badminton event at the Rio Olympics here on Wednesday.

The 21-year-old from Guntur, who had beaten the five-time world champion from China in the 2014 China Open final, suffered a 6-21, 21-11, 21-18 loss against the world no. 3 Chinese in a nerve-wrecking match that lasted for an hour and four minutes.

Lin will now take on his long-time rival and two-time Olympic silver medallist Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia in a mouth-watering semi-final clash.

The top seed beat sixth seed Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei 21-9, 21-15.

Srikanth thus remained the second Indian male shuttler to reach the quarter-finals after Parupalli Kashyap achieved the feat at the London Games.