Mumbai [India]: Ace shuttler Kidambi Srikanth, who recently became the first Indian and only fourth male shuttler in history to lift four Super Series titles in a calendar year, won the `Sportsman of the Year` award at the inaugural edition of the Indian Sports Honours held in Mumbai last evening.
Last month, the Hyderabadi shuttler won the French Open to lift his fourth Super Series title of the year. He has already clinched the Denmark Open Super Series Premier, the Indonesia Open Super Series Premier and the Australian Open Super Series earlier this year.
Srikanth, however, recently missed Hong Kong Open Super Series and China Open Super Series owing to a muscle strain.
Meanwhile, Rio Olympic silver-medallist PV Sindhu was also awarded for her stellar performance throughout the year as she bagged `Sportswoman of the Year` award in the individual sport category.
Sindhu is one of the two Indian shuttlers to ever win an Olympic medal – other being Saina Nehwal. She also won a silver medal at the 2017 BWF World Championships in 2017 besides also becoming the first Indian ever to win Korea Open Super Series.
She also made it to the semi-finals of the National Badminton Championship and Hong Kong Open Super Series.
Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who recently became the quickest bowler to reach 300 Test wickets during the second match against Sri Lanka in Nagpur, took `Sportsman of the Year` award in the Team Sport category.
Indian women’s cricket team captain Mithali Raj, on the other hand, was awarded with the `Sportswoman of the Year` gong in the same category.
The Mithali-led side, which ended as runners-up in the ICC Women’s World Cup, was declared as the `Team of the Year`.
Ace Indian tennis star Sania Mirza was honoured with the `Inspirational Honour` by the jury, while Olympic gold-medallist Abhinav Bindra bagged the `Transformational Contribution to Sport` award.
The initiative of honouring sportspersons from various fields was launched by Virat Kohli and Sanjiv Goenka’s RPSG. (ANI)