The Badminton Association of India on Wednesday announced the Indian lineup for the upcoming Sudirman Cup. A 15-member team has been revealed along with two reserves for the 2023 edition of the tournament.
The Indian contingent will be led by double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu and the experienced duo of HS Prannoy and Kidambi Srikanth. The star Men’s Doubles duo of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy will also be travelling to Suzhou, China.
Anupama Upadhaya who has recently clinched the Women’s Singles National title has also been selected in the team. While second choice Men’s Doubles pairing of Dhruv Kapila and Arjun MR will also be travelling with the team and will hope to play a role in helping the team win matches.
All eyes will be on Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly after their sensational performances in recent tournaments. They reached the semifinals of the All England and will look to keep on improving as they have the potential to go a long way. Ashwini Ponappa will pair up with Tanisha Crasto as the second women’s doubles pairing.
Crasto will look to pair up with Sai Prateek in the mixed doubles as her regular partner, Ishaan Bhatnagar is missing. Ishaan is still recovering from the injury that he sustained during the National Championship in February.
However, the biggest shock has to be Lakshya Sen, who fails to make the cut in the team and will be travelling as one of the two reserves. His recent performances and waning form have been the primary reason. He also decided to take a break which did put him on the back foot currently. Sen dropped down by six places and is currently positioned at World No. 25 in the BWF rankings.
Priyanshu Rajawat also recently won the Orleans Masters in France and has been playing sublime badminton. But he was also snubbed from the main, just because there is too much competition.
Akarshi Kashyap, who has toiled hard and remained the second fiddle to PV Sindhu in women’s singles for a long time finds herself in the reserves. Upadhay, who won the nationals has overtaken her and earned a spot in the main team.
The tournament will start from May 14 to 21 in Suzhou, China. India are placed in Group C. It is a tough group as they have teams like Malaysia, Chinese Taipei and Australia for the company.
With most of the players out of form and also some have recently recovered from injury, it will be interesting to see how things pan out. But given the fact that Indian shuttlers always raise their game in these sorts of global events, there is a lot to be hopeful from this team.
