Asia Championship: Indian players including Sindhu eyeing good performance

India’s star players, including double Olympic medalist PV Sindhu, will aim to improve their game and put up a better show at the Asia Badminton Championships, starting here on Wednesday. The prestigious continental competition began with the qualifying round on Tuesday while the main round matches will begin on Wednesday. It won’t be easy for India to win a medal as their top players have been struggling of late. India has so far won a total of 17 medals in the Asia Badminton Championships. The only gold medal for him was won by Dinesh Khanna in 1965.

Sindhu, HS Prannoy and Lakshya Sen will really need to be at their best to end this wait for a gold medal. Sindhu, who is back after recovering from injury, will open her campaign against Taiwan’s Wen Chi Soo. In men’s singles, world number nine Prannoy will face Myanmar’s Phone Pyare Naing while Kidambi Srikanth will take on Adnan Ibrahim of Bahrain. The first challenge for Commonwealth Games champion Lakshya, who has been out of form for a while, is not going to be an easy one. In the first round, he will face former world champion Loh Kean of Singapore. In women’s singles, Malavika Bansod will take on top seed and last year’s finalist Akane Yamaguchi of Japan, while Aakarshi Kashyap will take on Indonesia’s Komang Ayu Kahya Devi.

In men’s doubles, the sixth seeded pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, who won the Swiss Open earlier this year, will open their campaign against Malaysian pair of Tan Qian Meng and Tan Wei Kiong. MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila and Krishna Prasad Garga and Vishnuvardhan Goud Panjala will also contest in the men’s doubles. Women’s doubles pair of Commonwealth Games bronze-medallist Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand will face Indonesia’s Lani Triya Mayasari and Rebekah Sugiarto in the first round. Apart from them, Ashwini Bhat and Shikha Gautam and Harita Manjhil and Aashna Roy will also challenge for India in women’s doubles.

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