Indian players will come out to shine in India Open, attention will be on Satwik-Chirag

Indian players will try to take advantage of home conditions and shine in the India Open Super 750 badminton tournament starting in Delhi from Tuesday with all eyes on Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty. Satwik and Chirag had won six titles in 2023 while recently finishing as runners-up in the Malaysia Super 1000 tournament. This has increased expectations from them.

This important tournament of the Badminton Association of India was held in the Super 750 category last year but then the Indian players did not perform well and no one was able to advance beyond the second round. Earlier in 2022, Satwik and Chirag had won the men’s doubles title while Lakshya Sen had won the men’s singles title. Indian players will now forget last year’s poor performance and try to live up to the expectations.

Satwik and Chirag had lost in a tough match in the final of Malaysia Open but they are determined to perform well on home soil. Satwik said, “We want to perform well in our country. After this tournament, our hunger to win has increased and we want to give our best performance in front of our home crowd. Last year, due to injury to Satwik, the Indian pair had to withdraw before the second round match, but This time he is completely fit.

In the first round, they will face world number 25 Fang Zhen Li and Fang Chih Lee. While Satwik and Chirag will start as strong contenders for the title, in the men’s singles the focus will be on HS Prannoy, Lakshya Sen and Kidambi Srikanth, especially with two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu missing the tournament due to a knee injury. Are playing. Prannoy and Lakshya, who performed poorly in Malaysia, will need to find their rhythm quickly while Srikanth, who defeated Jonathan Christie in the first round last week, will look to take inspiration from that win. Prannoy and Lakshya had lost in the first round of Malaysia Open.

At the India Open, he will start his campaign against Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei and Priyanshu Rajawat respectively. Srikanth would like to perform well keeping Olympic qualification in mind. In the first round, he will face Lee Cheuk Yiu of Hong Kong. Prannoy is currently at number eight in the world rankings and is at the forefront of the race for Olympic qualification. In the race for second place are Srikanth and Lakshya, whose world rankings are currently 24 and 17 respectively.

The race for a place in the Olympics in women’s doubles has also become very tough. For this, Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto and Commonwealth Games bronze medalists Gayatri Gopichand and Trisa Jolly are in the race. Ashwini and Tanisha will face Thailand’s Ravinda Prajongjai and Jongkolphan Kititharakul in the first round while Treesa and Gayatri will face fourth seeds Nami Matsuyama and Chiharu Shida of Japan.

Disclaimer: IndiaTheNews has not edited this news. This news has been published from PTI-language feed.

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