The meet is the first wrestling qualifier for the Paris Olympics. Indian wrestlers, however, won’t be able to compete under the national flag at Belgrade since the United World Wrestling (UWW), the global governing body for the sport, has provisionally suspended the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) for not conducting elections on time.
This was Lakshya Sen’s second successive semi-final exit. He had also lost in the semifinal of the US Open .
Two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu and World no 9 HS Prannoy will lead the Indian challenge at Sudirman Cup to be played in Suzhou, China from May 14-21,
German Philipp Katich and Englishman Alex Fitzpatrick shared the second spot with Bajaj after the first round of the second of two European Challenge Tour events in India.
The tournament, which has been upgraded to the BWF World Tour Super 750 status from this year, will see almost all the top-10 world ranked players across the 5 categories compete for glory for a total prize purse of $850,000.
