Team India Leaves for Thailand Open, Sindhu to Fly in from UK

The Indian badminton team, including Saina Nehwal, B Sai Praneeth, Kidambi Srikanth, Sikki Reddy, Satwik Sairaj, Ashwini Ponnappa, Sumeeth Reddy, Parupalli Kashyap left for Bangkok on Sunday to take part in the two Super 1000 events, scheduled in the Thai capital from January 12th, 2021. Olympic Silver Medallist PV Sindhu, meanwhile, will join the team in Bangkok directly as she is traveling directly from London via Doha.

“After a long wait we get back on court soon at Thailand Open!!! excited much," said a very upbeat and enthusiastic, Satwik Sairaj just before the team’s departure.

The Yonex Thailand Open starting January 12 and Toyota Thailand Open starting January 19 are currently the two back-to-back tournaments planned followed by the World Tour Finals in the last week of January – as Badminton World Federation makes another attempt at restarting topflight badminton following the corona virus break.

These tournaments are part of the 2020 World Tour, which is now expected to conclude at the end of January 2021. The 2020 World Tour saw widespread cancellations of tournaments and after the lockdown following the All England Championships, pretty much the entire year was a washout with the exception of Denmark Open, SaarLorLux Super 100.

However, the twin tournaments & the world tour finale will not have a smooth sailing, with the Chinese & Japanese contingents already backtracking. China was the first to withdraw from the tournaments last week, while Japan was forced to reconsider their participation following a positive test for World Number #1 Kento Momota.