Indian hopes of ending the title drought in the $250,000
Yonex Sunrise India Open Super Series badminton tournament that begins in New Delhi from April 1 would
hinge on the two women’s stars – Saina Nehwal and P V Sindhu – overcoming a
stiff draw and the top three Chinese stars.
The draw for the fourth edition of the competition was
released yesterday and the Indian contingent would definitely feel hard done.
London Olympics bronze medallist Saina, seeded eighth here,
begins her campaign against Austrian Simone
Prutsch and should sail through till the quarterfinals where she is likely to
meet world number 3 Yihan Wang of China.
While Saina should be
relatively safe till the last eight stage, Sindhu faces All England champion
Shixian Wang in the first round. The lanky Indian would, however, take heart
from the fact that she has a 3-0 head-to-head record against the Chinese
opponent.
If the two Indian
stars manage to maintain an unbeaten run, they could face each other in the
semifinals.
The men’s singles
players have an uphill task to even move beyond the first round with P Kashyap
facing sixth seed Zhengming Wang, B Sai Praneeth takes on seventh seed Pengyu
Du and national champion K Srikanth faces Japan’s Takuma Ueda in their respective
opening round encounters.
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