In the USD 950,000 prize money ‘Denmark Open Super 750’ badminton tournament set to begin tomorrow, India’s star players are facing a tough challenge. Two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu will face world No. 1 and defending champion An Se-young of South Korea in the first round of women’s singles itself. This match will be extremely crucial for 31-year-old Sindhu, who won the Japan Open in July, as she has lost all of her last 10 matches against An Se-young.
On the other hand, Lakshya Sen also faces a tough draw in men’s singles. Lakshya, the only Indian men’s singles player to have reached an Olympic semi-final, will play against the tournament’s third seed Chou Tien Chen in the first round itself. Lakshya, who has recently recovered from a back injury, will try to regain his best form through this tournament.
2017 champion Kidambi Srikanth will begin his campaign against France’s Arnaud Merkle. 2025 US Open winner Ayush Shetty will play against Indonesia’s Alwi Farhan. Taipei Open winner Tanvi Sharma will face Japan’s Natsuki Nidaira. Meanwhile, Korea Masters winner Ashmita Chaliha will play against Bulgaria’s Kaloyana Nalbantova. Apart from this, Unnati Hooda and Devika Sihag will also fight to enter the next round.
In men’s doubles, China Masters winners and India’s No. 1 pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will play against China’s He Ji Ting and Ren Xiang Yu pair.
In women’s doubles, World Championship bronze medalists Trisha Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand pair will begin their campaign against Chinese Taipei’s Yan Fei Chen and Hsieh Pei Shan.
After the success of the T20 World Cup and Asian Games, the Indian badminton team is hopeful of putting up a good performance in this Super 750 tournament as well.