Indian powerhouse at the Indonesia Masters, Srikanth and Prannoy pulled out

The Indian powerhouse started their HSBC BWF world tour at Indonesia Masters 2018, a Super 500 world tour tournament at Jakarta, which has the prize purse of USD 350,000.

Second seeded Kidambi Srikanth and HS Prannoy made the last minute withdraw from the tournament and the reason being unknown; the duo would be participating in the All India Open followed by the Badminton Asia Team Championships from next week. Srikanth’s withdrawal has promoted Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap into the main draw. Besides, Sameer Verma is the other Indian in the main draw of men’s singles.

Badminton queens, PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal will kick-off their new season before the home tournament, All India Open; while Sindhu is the second seeded, Saina remained unseeded and faces the seventh seed Chen Yufei in the opening round.  

In men’s doubles, the top two Indian pairs Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty and Manu-Attri-Sumeeth Reddy will be seen on the courts. While, there is no Indian player in women’s doubles and mixed doubles.

National Championships bronze medallist Subhankar Dey and Abhishek Yelegar of men’s singles and  Sri Krishna Priya Kudaravalli will be eyeing main draw berths when the qualifying rounds get under way on Tuesday.

The other seeds in the men’s singles are World No. 1 Viktor Axelsen, Lin Dan, Chou Tien-chen, Ng Ka Long, Chen Long, and Son Wan Ho, while in women’s singles Tai Tzu Ying, Sung Ji Hyun, Nozomi Okuhara, Carolina Marin, Chen Yufei, Ratchanok Intanon, and He bingjiao.

With the hike in the prize money of the World Tour tournaments, the last 16 participants are allocated with the prize money and at Indonesia Masters it is of USD 1,225.