A strong Indian badminton team, led by Saina Nehwal and K. Srikanth, will start its campaign in the prestigious Sudirman Cup with a clash against Malaysia in Group 1D here on Monday.
India, which reached the knock-out stage of the biennial tournament in the 2011 edition, has been clubbed with Malaysia and three-time champion Korea this time.
India has always depended on its singles players to excel in the Sudirman Cup and the story will be no different this year as world No. 2 Saina Nehwal, world No. 4 K. Srikanth, 13th ranked P. Kashyap, and No. 11 P.V. Sindhu will have to ensure there are no hiccups.
A world mixed team championship, Sudirman Cup will have five matches in every round, including three doubles — men, women and mixed and the onus will once again be on 2011 World Championship bronze medallists G. Jwala and Ashwini Ponnappa to earn India a win.
Among others, Sikki Reddy and Pradnya Gadre will be the second women’s doubles pair, world No. 30 B. Sumeeth Reddy and Manu Attri will carry the hopes for India in the men’s doubles competition and Aparna Balan and Arun Vishnu will take the court in the mixed doubles match.
Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Akshay Dewalkar will be the second men’s doubles team.
Against Malaysia, it will be an interesting clash as former world No. 1 Lee Chong Wei will be back in action after serving an eight-month back-dated doping ban.
It will also be interesting to see who takes the field against the two-time Olympic silver medallist between Srikanth and Kashyap.
Lee has already acknowledged the rising reputation of Srikanth, who won the China Open and India Open in the last six months, saying: “I’m aware that Srikanth has been playing really well. I’ll just go and try my best.”
