A strong Indian badminton team, led by Saina Nehwal and K Srikanth, will start its campaign in the prestigious Sudirman Cup with a clash against Malaysia in Group 1D here on Monday. India, who reached the knockout stage of the biennial tournament in 2011 edition, has been clubbed with Malaysia and three-time champion Korea.
India has always depended on their singles players to excel in Sudirman Cup and the story will be no different this year as World No 2 Saina Nehwal, World No 4 Kidambi Srikanth, 13th ranked P Kashyap, and No 11 P V Sindhu will have to ensure there are no hiccups.
A world mixed team championship, Sudirman Cup will have five matches in every round, including three doubles — men, women and mixed and the onus will once again be on Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa to earn India a win.
Among others, Sikki Reddy and Pradnya Gadre will be the second women’s doubles pair, World No 30 Sumeeth Reddy B and Manu Attri will carry the hopes for India in the men’s doubles competition and Aparna Balan and Arun Vishnu will take the court in mixed doubles. Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Akshay Dewalkar will be the second men’s doubles team.
Against Malaysia, it will be an interesting clash as former World No 1 lee Chong Wei will be back after serving an eight-month backdated doping ban.
lee has already acknowledged the rising reputation of Srikanth, who won the China Open and India Open in the last six months.
Group 1A: China, Thailand and Germany
Group1B: Japan, Chinese Taipei and Russia
Group 1C: Indonesia, Denmark and England
Group 1D: Korea, India and Malaysia.