Thailand Open: PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal gear up as badminton resumes

Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu has been handed relatively an easy draw but tough outings await Saina Nehwal as the Indian duo returns to international competition in Thailand nearly 10 months after COVID19 pandemic halted all tournaments globallySindhu and Saina didnt participate in Denmark Open Super 750 and SaarLorLux Super 100mdashthe only two events which could be conducted since BWF was forced to suspend the calender after the completion of the All England Championships in MarchCream of talentNow all eyes are on the two Super 1000 eventsmdashYonex Thailand Open January 1217 and Toyota Thailand Open January 1924 as the worlds best returns to action following a prolonged breakSaina NehwalWorld champion Sindhu seeded sixth will open against Denmarks Mia Blichfeldt while Saina who has recently recovered from COVID19 will face formidable Japanese Nozomi Okuhara seeded third in the first roundIn the next tournament Sindhu who has qualified for the Tokyo Olympics and has been training in London for the last two months will meet Thailands Busanan Ongbamrungphan in the opening round while London Olympics bronze medallist Saina will square off against another Thai star player Ratchanok Inthanon seeded fourthSindhu 25 has been seeded sixth in both the tournaments according to the draws announced by the Badminton World Federation BWF on TuesdayIn the mens singles a total of seven Indians including former World No 1 Kidambi Srikanth Olympicbound B Sai Praneeth and young Lakshya Sen will be participating in both the eventsSrikanth who had reached the quarterfinals at Denmark Open in October will cross swords with fellow Indian Sourabh Verma in the opening round in the first Thailand event while Lakshya who lost in second round at Odense will be up against Denmarks Rasmus GemkePraneeth will fight it out against local player Kantaphon Wangcharoen HS Prannoy will take on eight seed Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia former Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap meets Japans Kenta Nishimoto while Sameer Verma faces Indonesias Shesar Hiren Rhustavito Srikanth will square up against local player Sitthikom Thammasin in the second event and Praneeth will take on Malaysias Daren Liew in relatively easier draws but Lakshya faces an uphill task against second seed Chou Tien Chen of Chinese TaipeiKashyap Prannoy in focusAmong others Kashyap will face Gemke Prannoy will face off sixth seed Jonatan Christie of Indonesia while Verma brothersmdashSameer and Sourabh will meet eight seed Zii Jia and fifth seed Anthony Sinisuka Ginting of Indonesia respectivelyIndian mens pairing of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty who have also qualified for the Tokyo Games will face Korean combination of Kim Gi Jung and Lee Yong Dae in the first event while it will be an allIndian duel in the second tournament with the World No 10 pair taking on Manu Attri and B Sumeeth ReddyThailand has been dealing with prodemocracy protest movements and has recently seen a spike in COVID19 cases as well However BWF said The Yonex Thailand Open and Toyota Thailand Open plus the season ending HSBC BWF World Tour Finals will go ahead as plannedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever