Leading India players Saurav Ghosal and Joshna Chinappa have been seeded second in the men's and women's singles at the Asian Individual Squash Championship to be held here from April 26 to 30.
According to the seedings and draw released here on Monday, the top billing in both the men's and women's section has gone to Hong Kong players, Max Lee and Annie Au, respectively.
In the 64-player men's draw, Ghosal is the second seed in the lower half and has a first round bye as do Vikram Malhotra (seed 10), Mahesh Mangaonkar (11), Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu (15) and Velavan Senthilkumar.
Aditya Jagtap plays Japanese Ryunosuke Tsukue in the opener.
In the women's singles, where it is a draw of 32, Chinappa and fourth-seeded Dipika Pallikal start with a bye.
As for the others, all unseeded, Akanksha Salunkhe faces the 16th seed Satomi Watanabe of Japan, Sunayna Kuruvilla takes on Korean Choe Yura, Sachika Ingale plays Aifa Azman from Malaysia while Lakshya R plays Zoe Foo also from Malaysia.
In the 2015 edition held in Kuwait, Leo Au of Hong Hong had won the men's title and Nicol David of Malaysia the women's title. While Leo comes in as fifth seed in Chennai, nine-times winner Nicol is not participating this time.
Other seedings: Men: 3. Mohd Nafizwan Adnan (Malaysia); 4. Yip Tsz Fung (Hong Kong); 5. Leo Au (Hong Kong); 6. Abdulla Al-Tamimi (Qatar).
Women: 3. Joey Chan (Hong Kong); 4. Dipika Pallikal Karthik (India); 5. Liu Tsz Ling (Hong Kong); 6. Tong Tsz Wing (Hong Kong).