Defending champion Sameer Verma and world no. 30 Yeo Jia Min of Singapore are the top seeds in the men's and women's singles, respectively, at the Hyderabad Open badminton championship to be held at the Gachibowli Indoor Stadium here from Tuesday.
Sameer who was the lead performer in men’s singles for India last year, winning Syed Modi Open, Swiss Open and Hyderabad Open before making it to the prestigious year-end BWF World Tour finals, should be looking to regain his wonted form in the lead up to the upcoming BWF World championships.
India's leading women shuttlers P.V. Sindhu and Saina Nehwal will not be in action and even Kidambi Srikanth, who is struggling to find the kind of form which fetched him four Super Series titles in 2017 and the world no. 1 ranking, will not be in action. It is learnt that they are preparing for the world Championships later this month.
The other main contender for the men’s singles title will be 26-year-old B. Sai praneeth, who finished runner up in this year’s Swiss Open and then lost to Kento Momota in the Japan Open. He was a quarterfinalist in the Thailand Open where Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty scripted history .
READ | Satwiksairaj and Chirag watched video of Thailand Open championship-point 'at least 50 times'
For someone with a reputation of being an artist on the court given the kind of amazing shots he can essay from seemingly difficult angles, Praneeth - the winner of 2017 Singapore Open - should be more than determined to get his hands on the winner’s prize here.
In women’s singles, the other contenders are world no. 33 An Se-Young of Korea and world no. 45 Zhang Yiman. This reflects a depleted field in this category.
In doubles, the championship features Satwik and Chirag (men), Ashwini Ponnappa and N. Sikki Reddy (women) and Ashwini Ponnappa and Satwik (mixed doubles) as the top-seeds.
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