A third India Open title, following his first final appearance a decade ago, highlighted his longevity and the two-time Olympic champion Viktor Axelsen is feeling "surreal" after the triumph here on Sunday.

The 31-year-old Dane said the win reignited his motivation after a lull, following his Olympic victory in Paris. Playing in his sixth India Open final in 10 years, Axelsen, a 2017 and 2019 winner, triumphed 21-16, 21-8 over last year's finalist Lee Cheuk Yiu of Hong Kong in the men's singles summit clash.

"The first one as a 31-year-old. I was in my first final here 10 years ago, which is crazy. It feels very surreal to win this for the third time in my sixth final. It is amazing," Axelsen said. After the triumph in the Paris Olympics, Axelsen had some injury issues and had to pull out of the season-ending BWF World Tour Finals due to a foot injury, preventing him from defending his title.

The two-time world champion returned to Malaysia but had lost to Lee in the opening round of the Super 1000 event last week and also struggled to close out matches in the quarterfinals and semifinals here at the India Open.

"Actually this title feels very special to me. I've struggled a little bit post-Olympics with injuries, training and my motivation has been lacking a little bit. But this week I felt like a competitor out there. "I dug deep in every single match almost and found a solution. And to be winning here means a lot. It gives me a lot of motivation.

"Yeah, now I feel like actually I have some work to do. I won a title here, but titles are not all for me. I want to keep getting better and find solutions under different circumstances. And I've definitely managed to do so this week. So I'm very proud and happy." Axelsen admitted he is yet to regain his best form but said the win gave him confidence to target bigger titles with more training.

"I'm far from my best at the moment actually. So that is a very good sign that I'm winning here. I haven't really had a good training block for a long time. If I can structure together like four weeks of proper training, then I feel like I can be in an even better place and compete for the biggest titles," he said.

"But to be in the final here, win the title for the third time, that proved that I have been very consistent over my career and that's something that I'm very proud of because it's definitely not easy with new players coming up all the time. So yeah, I'm very happy about it."

Axelsen mentioned that he didn’t sleep much but managed to get his body in top shape for the final. "I slept very bad. I slept maybe four or five hours. I had a good treatment. We laughed a lot at breakfast and just had a good time relaxing. Just tried my best to get my body ready."

Talking about the final, Axelsen said: "I didn't feel like it was smooth sailing at all. I was struggling especially in the start with Lee's game. But my legs started coming, I started moving better, and my defense started to be better, and also my offense, and then from there I felt more and more confident.

"And then in the second game, I started to feel like my attack was sitting pretty well, and I felt more and more comfortable, and a few easy mistakes from Lee today, and then I just felt confident, and I think he maybe started to feel there was a long way to go."