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Saina is also among the players who did not participate in the National Badminton Trials 2023.

New Delhi. Two-time Commonwealth Games champion Saina Nehwal is among those badminton players who will not take part in the national trials for the Asian Team Championship to be held in Dubai from February 14 to 19. Former number one Saina was included for the trials along with Aakarshi Kashyap and Malvika Bansod. The names of all three were included for the senior selection committee to pick the second women’s singles player along with two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu at the Asian event. But both Saina and Malvika announced not to participate in the trials.

A Badminton Association of India (BAI) source told PTI, “Saina and Malvika have informed BAI about their unavailability for the trials. That’s why Asmita Chaliha has been invited for the trials. Some other players have also decided to withdraw. This will now lead to a fight between Aakarshi and Asmita. Saina had a tough 2022 as she battled multiple injuries and a lack of form saw her slip to 31st in the world rankings. She was also not available for the 2022 Commonwealth Games selection trials in April last year to manage her workload.

The selection committee decided to give direct entry to singles players Lakshya Sen, HS Prannoy, Sindhu and men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty on the basis of their best world rankings. The committee held a virtual meeting on December 25, in which it decided to select other members of the 14-member squad from the trials. Now this trial will be done in one day only due to non-availability of players. It is learned that MR Arjun is also injured and will not be a part of the trials, leaving the pair of Krishna Prasad Garga and Vishnuvardhan Goud P and Ishaan Bhatnagar and Sai Prateek in a knockout match for the men’s doubles spot. The winning pair will join Satwik and Chirag in the team. The pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy will also not be available for the trials as the pair had parted ways a few months back.

Two spots will be up for grabs in the women’s doubles with Trisha Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand leading the race. The other two pairs in the trials are Ashwini Bhatt and Shikha Gautam and Haritha Manajyi and Ashna Roy. Ishaan Bhatnagar and Tanisha Crasto and newcomers Rohan Kapoor and Sikki Reddy will have options for a spot in the mixed doubles. This will be the third edition of the Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championship as the 2021 edition in Wuhan, China was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. India lost 2-3 to Thailand in the quarterfinals in 2017, while in 2019 could not even qualify for the knockouts.

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