2021 World Championship medallists Kidambi Srikanth and Lakshya Sen will face off against their young challengers at the selection trails, for the Asian Games, to be held at the Jwala Gutta Academy in Hyderabad from May 4-7, .
The Badminton Association of India (BAI) has been conducting selection trials for major team championships since last year with top-20 ranked players in the BWF world ranking being picked directly.
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The Asian Games in Hangzhou, China to be played from September 23-October 8 this year, will have separate team championships for men and women followed by individual events in which India can have a maximum of two entries per event.
Nine men’s singles players and eight women’s singles players have entered the trials for three spots each while there are four entries each in men’s and mixed doubles and three in women’s doubles.
The selectors have proposed to pick one pair each for men’s and women’s doubles and two mixed doubles combinations through a round-robin tournament format to decide the final standings.
Men’s and women’s singles players will be divided into two groups in Stage 1 with the top two players in each group going to Stage 2. The four players will once again face-off in a league format and the result of Stage 2 for players competing against each other for the second time will be considered for the final standings.
For the doubles events, there will be only one stage with all pairs playing round-robin matches to decide the final standings.
The selected players will join HS Prannoy, former world champion PV Sindhu, reigning Asian Champions Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and the women’s doubles combination of Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly.
