Korea Open 2018: High hopes from Saina and Sameer

The Korean Open World Tour Super 500 tournament will embark from Tuesday at Seoul, South Korea. The tournament will witness only two Indian shuttlers with the likes of the ace shuttler Saina Nehwal, and the Hyderabad Open 2018 winner Sameer Verma will go the extra mile in the tournament.

Many shuttlers from around the world will partake to hustle for the prize of USD 600,000.

The bronze medallist at the Asian Games, Saina Nehwal will look forward to performing better at the Korean Open who took an early exit at the China Open last week after Kim Hyo Min of Korea, foiled her in the first round, which is disappointing for the shuttler.

The fifth-seeded Saina has done well in all major tournaments and events this year. She not only won her second gold medal at the Commonwealth Games, held in Gold Coast but the world No 10 also won the historic medal at the Asian Games at Jakarta. However, she has been a little inconsistent when it comes to the BWF events. Saina also remained the silver medallist at the USD 350,000 worth Indonesia Masters, that took place in January.

In the Men's Singles, Sameer Verma will keep the hope of India alive, after Kidambi's withdraw from the Korea Open. Srikanth Kidambi battled back-to-back at the Japan Open and China Open in the past two weeks.

On the other hand, Sameer also had an injury a few weeks ago and is fit right now and has been doing well. He won the titles of the Swiss Open held in February and Hyderabad Open that took place this month. The 23-year-old shuttler from Dhar, Madhya Pradesh, also finished runners-up at the 2016 Hong Kong Open. He is drawn against Anders Antonsen of Denmark in the inaugural match of the Korean Open. Although this is not the first time, Sameer will venture against the Danish shuttler. Earlier, He has foiled Anders at the Indian Open in January 2018.

If Sameer managed to win the Opening match, he can bite a bullet against Japan's Kento Momota in the upcoming rounds.

On the other hand, Vaishnavi Reddy Jakka will also partake at the tournament, and in the opening round, she will hustle against the sixth-seeded Beiwen Zhang of USA.

Shuttler Ajay Jayaram will fight against Zhao Junpeng of China in the qualifiers round, whereas Vaidehi Choudhari and Mugdha Agrey will also battle for the qualifying round at the Women's Singles.