World champion Carolina Marin and All England champion Nozomi Okuhara withdrew from the $300,000 India Open to go with the pullout of Commonwealth Games men singles gold medallist P. Kashyap as the glittering field lost some of its sheen.
From the Indian perspective, P. V. Sindhu benefited from these withdrawals since she was pitted against Carolina. Had Sindhu advanced to the quarter-finals, she could have run into Nozomi.
Kashyap, nursing a knee-injury, was replaced by B. Sai Praneeth, the youngster who stunned fancied Lee Chong Wei in the All England championship earlier this month.
In the doubles’ too, there were some top pairs who decided to pullout.
Top seeds in mixed doubles, Tontowi Ahmad and Lilyana Natsir and the All England champion Praveen Jordan and Debby Susanto withdrew. In women’s doubles, two-time World champions Tian Qing and Zhao Yunlei were among the no-shows while the men’s doubles lost Hiroyuki Endo & Kenichi Hayakawa and Liu Xiaolong & Zihan Qiu, seeded three and six, respectively.
After Tuesday’s qualifying rounds, Anura Prabhudesai, Ruthvika Gadde, Tanvi Lad and Rituparna Das filled the qualifying spots in the women’s singles. Among the men, Sourabh Varma was the only Indian among four qualifiers.
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