Indian men’s singles players like Kidambi Srikanth, Lakshya Sen and HS Prannoy were handed tough draws in the single quarter of the Yonex Sunrise India Open badminton tournament to be held here from January 17 to 22. This BWF World Tour event has been upgraded to Super ‘Super 750’ category this year. Former world champion and two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu will open her campaign against Supanida Katethong. The Thailand player had defeated Sindhu in the semi-finals last year. Defending champions Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will open their campaign in men’s doubles against top-ranked pair of Jeppe Be and Lasse Molhede of Denmark.
The toughest position is for India’s top singles players in the men’s section. Srikant, Sen and Prannoy are in the same quarter. This means that only one of them will be able to cross the quarter-final barrier. The same quarter also has strong players like reigning world and Olympic champion Viktor Axelsen, Shi Yu Qi of China and Kento Momota of Japan. Defending champion Sen will open his campaign against compatriot Prannoy and the winner of the match will face a tough challenge from Momota. He would like to make a comeback in 2023 after struggling last year.
Former champion Srikanth will face top seed Axelsen in the first round itself. Among women, fifth seed Sindhu has been out of action since the Commonwealth Games in August due to a heel injury. The returning shuttler will have to face a challenge from Chen Yufei in the quarter-finals if she manages to clear the initial hurdle. Former world number one Saina Nehwal will open her campaign against Mia Blichfeldt of Denmark. Malvika Bansod and Aakarshi Kashyap will challenge for the first time in a Super 750 level tournament.
World No. 30 Malvika will face Thailand’s experienced Busanan Ongbamrungphan while Aakarshi will face India Open champion and world No. 26 Beiwen Zhang of America. In men’s doubles, world number 21 MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila will face sixth seeded Danish pair of Kim Astrup and Anders Rasmussen while Krishna Prasad Garg and Vishnuvardhan Goud will square off against Netherlands’ Ruben Zille and Tice van der Lek. I will get down
In women’s doubles, All England semi-finalists Trisha Jolly and Gayatri Gopichandy will be up against French pair of Margot Lambert and Anne Tran. Ashwini Bhat and Shikha Gautam will open their campaign against eighth seeds Pearly Tan and Thinah Muralitharan of Malaysia. Mixed doubles pair of Ishaan Bhatnagar and Tanisha Castro will take on Dutch pair of Robin Tabeling and Selena Piek.
