Defending Champion India faces Thailand in their Thomas Cup Opener.
While the Thomas Cup is the world badminton team championship for men, the Uber Cup is the women’s version. Both championships are held simultaneously biannually.
World No. 9 Prannoy HS and former World No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth will spearhead the line-up as Indian shuttlers get ready for Yonex-Sunrise 75th Inter State-Inter Zonal and 84th Senior National Badminton Championships to be played at the Balewadi stadium in Pune from February 22 to 28.
The team championship will be played on February 22 and 23 with a prize purse of Rs 10 Lakhs, while individual championships will have Rs 40-lakhs as prize money.
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The men’s and women’s singles champions will take home a prize purse of Rs 3.25 lakhs each with the doubles champions getting richer by Rs 3.45 lakhs .The winning team in the Inter State-Inter Zonal meet will earn Rs 5 Lakhs as prize money.
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The senior nationals were not held for the last two years due to the Covid pandemic and returns to a city that is widely considered as the birth place of shuttle badminton.
Prannoy and Srikanth, who played an important role in India’s Thomas Cup and Asian Mixed Team podium finish, will face a stiff challenge in their quest for glory from the likes of defending champion Sourabh Verma, former world championships bronze medallist B Sai Praneeth and Sameer Verma.
The challenge of the young brigade is likely to be shouldered by the likes of Mithun Manjunath, Kiran George and Priyanshu Rajawat as a total of 479 entries have been registered for honours.
The other stars set to vie for the coveted title include All England semi-finalist women’s doubles combination of Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly, men’s doubles specialists Chirag Shetty, Dhruv Kapila, Krishna Prasad and Vishnuvardhan Goud.
“The popularity of the game is on an all-time high with the national team creating history by winning the Thomas Cup last year and then clinching India’s first-ever Badminton Asia Mixed Team medal earlier this month. National championship provides a fantastic platform for upcoming players to challenge the established stars and unearth fresh talent,” said Badminton Association of India (BAI) secretary Sanjay Mishra.
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