Badminton Asia Championships 2018: Tough test for Indians

2018 Commonwealth Games Mixed Team champion India started their yet another challenging campaign in Badminton Asia Championships in Wuhan, China on Tuesday.

Notwithstanding the success at various events, Indians are desperate to take another title at Wuhan. None of the Indian shuttlers have won this title so far.

Seems like Indians will face stiff test at Asian Championships.

CWG gold medallist Saina is likely to have tough battles from the second round, where she faces world champion Nozomi Okuhara of Japan or Fangjie Gao of China, and if she clears it, she perhaps faces Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand in the quarterfinals.

While, Sindhu has very easy passage till semi-finals, where she will face Chen Yufei of China. However, Sindhu feels that’s tough draw for her. “I need to give 100% from the opening round itself. It is tough for me to do well in an event like Asian Championships,” said Sindhu as quoted the saying by TOI.

In the Men’s Singles category, as well, the draw is pretty tough for the boys. Srikanth will begun the campaign against Kenta Nishimoto of Japan and would face Wong Wing Ki Vincent of Hong Kong in the next round. If he clears first two hurdles, the former world no.1 will see Lee Chong Wei in the quarter-finals.

Srikanth said, “I personally feel that I played like 11 matches in ten days at Commonwealth and I gave my 100% there. And after coming back from there I didn't get too much time to train...it was about four days or something. So I was not really thinking too much about the tournament it is more about taking it match by match.”

HS Prannoy, who is back to world no 10, is likely to face Lin Dan in the second round. He said, “I’m looking good as I had four to five days of intense practice. I have to play against Lin Dan. Hope to keep the CWG loss aside and get going again and play consistently,” he said.

Singapore Open champion Sai Praneeth will have to deal with Olympic champion Chen Long of China in the second round while Sameer Verma will begin campaign against seventh seed Tien Chen Chou of Chinese Taipei.

For India’s second best Men’s Doubles shuttlers Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy, the way till finals is as easy as it appears as none of the top double players are competing in the tournament.