All-England Crown for Prakash

Prakash Padukone became the first Indian to win the prestigious All-England badminton championship crushing the top-seeded and defending champion Liem Swie King of Indonesia 15-3, 15-10 in the final here tonight.

With this victory, Padukone, the 24-year-old Karnataka bank executive, achieved a badminton grand slam having already won the Danish and Swedish championships earlier this month.

For Prakash who became India's first men's singles title winner in the 70-year history of the championship this was his first win in five outings against the 26-year-old Indonesian.

The 24-year-old Indian gave a marvelous demonstration of his talent against Liem, who succeeded compatriot Rudy Hartono as champion two years ago.

After the match Prakash said: "It feels great. This has been one of my life's ambitions. Now I will try for the world title in Jakarta in May."

Prakash, a complete and extremely precise player, had to do little more than keep the shuttle in play against Liem, who could not match his opponent's accuracy.

The Indonesian had trouble finding his range right from the start and the errors flowed from his racket under the pressure of the relentlessly consistent Prakash.

The Indian broke Liem's serve on the first point, then ran off 10 consecutive points before Liem was able to slow his opponent's advance.

Having conceded the first game, Liem at least kept it closer in the second. There were some magnificent rallies and Liem took a 4-3 lead, but Prakash seized control at that point and raced to 10-4.

Liem chipped away at the margin and recovered to 10-13, but that was as close as he could manage. Prakash reached match point with an exquisite drop-shot off the net-cord, then won it with another drop-shot that Liem could only knock up for Prakash to kill.

Prakash picked up 1000 pounds for his win.