Changjhu: India’s top men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will appear on the court with the target of achieving a rhythm for the upcoming World Championship in the China Open Super 1000 badminton tournament starting here on Tuesday.
The China Open is the last major competition before the World Championship to be held from 25 to 31 August in Paris, so each player will be desperate to perform well in this competition.
At present, Satwik and Chirag, ranked 15th in the world, have reached the semi -finals of three tournaments in this season, but have failed to make it to the finals so far. Not only this, he had to face defeat to Paris Olympic silver medalist China’s Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang at the Japan Open last week.
The world’s former number one Indian pair will face Japan’s Kenya Mitsuhashi and Hiroki Okamura in the first round.
In the singles category, Lakshya Sen, HS Prannoy and PV Sindhu will expect to get back their form in $ 2 million prize competition.
The targets struggling to return to the form for some time had not been able to move beyond the second round at the Japan Open last week. His first match will be with the fifth seed Lee Xi Feng of China here. Another player from India, Prannoy, will face Koki Vatanbe of Japan in the first round.
Now, for Sindhu, who occupies the 16th ranking, has been the best performance this year for Sindhu to reach the quarter -finals at India Open. Last week she lost to Korea’s SIM You. This was the fifth occasion this year when she could not move beyond the first round.
Sindhu’s first match will be held by Japan’s sixth seed 18 -year -old former world junior champion Tomoka Miyajaki.
In the women’s singles itself, Taipei Open Semi -finalist Upanti Hooda will compete with Scotland’s Christie Gilmore in the first round, while Anupama Upadhyay will face Chinese Taipei’s Lin Siang Tea.
In the women’s doubles, the pair of Kavipriya Selvam-Simran Singhi, Panda sisters Rutparna and Shwetparna, and Amrita Pramuthesh-Sonali Singh are in the fray, while Rohan Kapoor and Rutwika Shivani will present their challenge in the mixed doubles.
