Former champion PV Sindhu received a first-round bye as most of the Indian shuttlers got a favorable draw for the BWF world championships to be held in Copenhagen Denmark, from August 21 to 27.
The draw was held at the Badminton World Federation headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Thursday.
16th seed Sindhu, may, face Japanese ace Nozomi Okuhara, an old foe, in the second round. Interestingly, Okuhara beat Sindhu in the 2017 world badminton championships final but the Indian star emerged on top in the 2019 final at Basel. Both Nozomi Okuhara and PV Sindhu have struggled for form of late.
In the men’s singles, Indians received favourable draws. Ninth seed HS Prannoy will open his campaign against 56th ranked Finland’s Kalle Koljonen, 11th seed Lakshya Sen, will face world No. 110 Georges Julien Paul of Mauritius.
Kidambi Srikanth, 20th in the badminton world rankings, unseeded in the draw and will face a much tougher opponent in Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto, ranked 15th. The Indian , however, have a 6-3 head-to-head record over the Japanese player.
Men’s doubles second seeds Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy were handed a bye in the opening round and so were Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly, the 15th seeds in women’s doubles.
In mixed doubles ,Rohan Kapoor/N Sikki Reddy will clash with Adam Hall/Julie Macpherson (Scotland),while Venkat Prasad/Juhi Dewangan will take on Jones Ralfy Jansen/Linda Efler (Germany)
PV Sindhu, the 2019 world champion, silver medalist in 2017 and 2018 and bronze medal winner in 2013 and 2014, is India’s most successful player in the history of the world badminton championships.
