Sindhu pulls out of Uber Cup, Thomas Cup team looks strong

PTI

New Delhi, April 4

Double Olympics medallist PV Sindhu and the two top women’s doubles pairs have opted out of the Uber Cup but a strong men’s team will take the court for its title defence in the Thomas Cup, commencing in Chengdu from April 27.

Sindhu, who has played six tournaments since returning to action at the Badminton Asia Team Championships in February, pulled out of the event to give herself more time to recover and be battle-ready for the Paris Olympics.

Top women’s doubles pairs — Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand and Ashwini Ponnappa-Tanisha Crasto — also withdrew since it is not a full strength team with Sindhu missing. They chose to focus on the other assignments as they strive to earn the Olympics qualification.

Following the withdrawal of Sindhu and the two pairs, Badminton Association of India (BAI) decided to reward the players who performed at the Senior National Championships by giving them the India cap.

“Sindhu opted out as she is coming back from an injury and she wants to give herself enough time to prepare for Paris Games where she will hope to win another medal for the country,” BAI secretary Sanjay Mishra said. “The doubles pairs also decided to skip the event as they too have been playing a lot of tournaments and want to focus on their qualification, so we have rewarded the semifinalists of the national championships by including them in the team.”

The 17-year-old Anmol Kharab, who is India’s latest badminton sensation, will be watched keenly at the big stage where she will have Ashmita Chaliha and Tanvi Sharma as her teammates in singles. The doubles pairs will be Shruti Mishra and Priya Konjengbam, and Simran Singhi and Ritika Thaker.

India are the defending champions in the Thomas Cup, having clinched the crown in 2022. The selectors decided to field a strong squad with a perfect mix of youth and experience.

A 10-member team for Thomas Cup will have five singles players with Kiran George joining HS Prannoy, Lakshya Sen, Kidambi Srikanth and Priyanshu Rajawat, while Sai Pratheek will be the back-up doubles player to the two first-choice combinations, namely world No. 1 pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, and MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila. — PTI

Teen Anmol reaches quarterfinals

Astana: Young shuttler Anmol Kharb continued to impress as she progressed to the women’s singles quarterfinals along with four other Indians in the Kazakhstan International Challenge. Devika Sihag, former national champion Anupama Upadhaya, seventh seed Tanya Hemanth and Isharani Baruah also entered the last-eight stage in the women’s singles. Anmol beat UAE’s Nurani Ratu Azzahra 21-11 21-7 in the second round. In the men’s singles, Ravi, Bharat Raghav and Tharun Mannepalli also progressed. PTI

Satwik out of Asia Championships

New Delhi: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty today pulled out of their men’s doubles title defence at next week’s Badminton Asia Championships with the former recuperating from a shoulder injury. It is a recurrent injury for Satwik.

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