Kidambi Srikanth advanced to the quarterfinals of the Canada Open 2025, a Super 300 BWF World Tour event, with a straight-games victory over Wang Po-Wei of Chinese Taipei. The Indian shuttler, a former world number 1, defeated Wang 21-19, 21-12 in a 40-minute match held at the Markham Pan Am Centre in Calgary.
Srikanth, currently ranked 49th in the world, demonstrated resilience and skill to overcome his opponent. In the first game, he trailed for a significant portion but fought back from a 5-11 deficit to level the score at 18-18. He then secured the game by winning three of the next four points. Wang initially took a 6-1 lead in the second game, but Srikanth responded with a seven-point surge to move ahead 8-6. Although Wang briefly regained the lead, Srikanth dominated the later stages, winning nine consecutive points to seal the match.
Prior to this victory, Srikanth had to battle through a tough first-round match against fellow Indian Priyanshu Rajawat. Srikanth recovered from a game down to beat Priyanshu, with the scores being 18-21, 21-19, 21-14 in a 53-minute contest. Before this match, Rajawat had won both of their previous encounters.
In other matches involving Indian players at the Canada Open 2025, Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian defeated Ayush Shetty, the recent US Open winner, in straight games. Shriyanshi Valishetty was the only Indian woman to win her first-round singles match, upsetting seventh-seeded Ukrainian Polina Buhrova. However, Tanya Hemanth and Ira Sharma exited the tournament after suffering losses. The top-seeded Indian mixed doubles pair of Dhruv Kapila and Tanisha Crasto also bowed out.
Srikanth's next opponent is likely to be Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei.
