Srikanth and Ashmita topped BAI’s selection trials, made it to the Asian Games team

Kidambi Srikanth and Ashmita Chaliha on Sunday topped the men’s and women’s singles events at the Badminton Association of India’s (BAI) selection trials to assure themselves of a place in the Indian team for the individual event at the Asian Games. World Championships 2021 silver medalists Srikanth and Ashmita won all their six bouts during the four-day trial. After topping Group A with three wins, Srikanth beat Lakshya Sen 21-15 21-14 after beating Siddhant Gupta 21-13 21-16 in leg two of the trials on Sunday.

Former world number one Srikanth had defeated national champion Mithun Manjunath 22-24 21-13 21-14 on Saturday. Srikanth topped stage two while Lakshya won five bouts to finish second in the rankings one to four. Manjunath finished third in the rankings one to four. In women’s singles, Ashmita and Anupama Upadhyay grabbed the first two spots while Malvika Bansod finished third in phase two. Unnati Hooda finished fourth after losing all her three matches. As per the format, nine men’s singles players and eight women’s singles players entered the trials for three spots each.

The men’s and mixed doubles had four entries each, while the women’s doubles had three entries. The singles players were divided into two groups in phase one. The top two players from each group advanced to stage two. The four players then faced off in a league format and the result of round two was considered as the final result. The selectors also proposed to select one pair each for men’s and women’s doubles and two mixed doubles pairs through a round-robin tournament format to decide the final table. After the trials, Sai Prateek K and Tanisha Crasto topped the mixed doubles event while Rohan Kapoor and N Sikki Reddy finished second. In women’s doubles, Tanishaa and Ashwini Ponnappa finished on top by winning both their matches.

World No. 23 pair of Dhruv Kapila and MR Arjun topped the men’s doubles event. Two other pairs of Suraj Gola and Prithvi Roy and Krishna Prasad and Vishnuvardhan Goud also registered two wins in three matches, similar to Dhruv and Arjun, which resulted in a three-way tie. The pair of Dhruv and Arjun topped the table because of their better game win-loss record. HS Prannoy, former world champion PV Sindhu, current Asian champions Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and women’s doubles pair of Gayatri Gopichand and Trisha Jolly have been directly selected for the Asian Games on the basis of their world rankings.

The Asian Games are to be played from September 23 to October 8 in Hangzhou, China. India had made it to the quarterfinals of both the men’s and women’s team events in the 2018 tournament. The Indian team is as follows: Men’s Singles: HS Prannoy, Kidambi Srikanth (Individual/Team), Lakshya Sen, Mithun Manjunath (Team) Men’s Doubles: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy & Chirag Shetty, Dhruv Kapila & MR Arjun (Individual/Team) Women’s Singles: PV Sindhu, Ashmita Chaliha (Individual/Team), Anupama Upadhyay, Malavika Bansod (Team) Women’s Doubles: Gayatri Gopichand & Trisha Jolly, Ashwini Ponnappa & Tanisha Crasto (Individual/Team) Mixed Doubles: Rohan Kapoor & N Sikki Reddy, Sai Prateek K and Tanisha Crasto.

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

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