Orleans Masters: Priyanshu Rajawat wins maiden BWF World Tour title

Priyanshu Rajawat clinched the men's singles title at the Orleans Master, beating Magnus Johannesen of Denmark

Orleans (France): India’s upcoming men’s shuttler Priyanshu Rajawat clinched the men’s singles title at the Orleans Master, beating Magnus Johannesen of Denmark 21-15, 19-21, 21-16 in the summit clash on Sunday.

This is Rajawat’s maiden BWF World Tour title and first Super 300 tournament final appearance. His only previous final on the BWF World Tour was at last year’s Odisha Open Super 100 event.

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Moreover, Priyanshu’s win was the first men’s singles title on Tour for an Indian shuttler since January last year when Lakshya Sen won the India Open.

En route to his maiden Super 300 title, the youngster dropped just one game in the entire tournament.

The young Indian took the opening game with an easy. But he made some unforced errors in the second, allowing Johannesen, to make his way back into the match. Rajawat earned seven straight points to take the lead at 16-14. But another slew of errors from him let Johannesen seal the second game.

Rajawat made a strong start to the third game, winning the first five points. A few errors from the Indian allowed Johannesen to close in but the Indian held his nerve to wrap up the match in an hour and eight minutes.

Priyanshu was the last remaining Indian challenge and has been in terrific form in the tournament. In the second round, he upset world No. 12 Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto, who had won the Madrid Spain Masters title heading into the Orleans Masters, where he was the top seed.