India's top shuttler P.V. Sindhu is set to feature in the 2019 BWF World Tour Finals scheduled to be held between December 11 and 16 in Guangzhou, China.
The defending champion Sindhu, however, will be India's sole representation in the tournament, in which players with the most points from the calendar year take part.
Since Sindhu had won the World Championships this year, she got a direct entry to the year-ending tournament. However, the Hyderabad-born shuttler's year derailed thereafter. She crashed out in the early stages of all tournaments, except the French Open, where she lost to Tzu Ying in the quarterfinals.
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In the women's singles, along with Sindhu, there will be world No. 1 Tai Tzu Ying, world No.4 Akane Yamaguchi and world No. 2 Chen Yu Fei, who topped the race to Guangzhou.
Tzu Ying, who was bagged by Bengaluru Raptors for Rs. 77 lakhs at the recently concluded Premier Badminton League auctions, finished fifth in the race. With a win-loss record of 29-15 in 2019, P.V. Sindhu will need to form from the word go to have a shot against the higher-ranked players.
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A year riddled with injuries and inconsistency meant Kidambi Srikanth failed to make the cut. B. Sai Praneeth, H.S. Prannoy and Sameer Verma also failed to qualify for the men's singles event, owing to a sub-par season on the tour.
The men's double pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty were not able to book a berth in the tournament despite an impressive run towards the end of the year.
The winner of the women's singles event will be award a prize money of $120,000, while the runner up will take home $60,000.
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