SportsBadminton
Sindhu draws world No. 1 An Se-young as French Open begins in Paris
Indian shuttlers start the Super 750 event on Tuesday looking to move on from a poor Denmark Open. Lakshya Sen meets Kodai Naraoka and Satwik and Chirag face the home pair of Popov brothers.
Key points
- PV Sindhu opens against top seed An Se-young, the defending champion.
- Sixth seed Lakshya Sen faces Kodai Naraoka of Japan in round one.
- First-round matches are on 20 and 21 October, with finals on 25 October.
India’s shuttlers return to court in Paris on Tuesday hoping the French Open goes better than last week’s Denmark Open. The draw has not been kind. PV Sindhu opens against South Korea’s An Se-young, the world No. 1, top seed and defending champion.
The Super 750 tournament, worth $950,000 in prize money, is being played at the Arena Grand Paris in Tremblay-en-France. First-round matches are spread over Tuesday and Wednesday, 20 and 21 October, and the finals are on Sunday, 25 October.
Sindhu arrives after a shock first-round defeat in Odense to Germany’s Yvonne Li, which came after a late revision of the draw.
Lakshya and Satwik-Chirag
Lakshya Sen, seeded sixth, meets Japan’s Kodai Naraoka. He beat Naraoka at the Asian Games, helping India to bronze in the men’s team event after recovering from a back problem, but his form has dipped since. Thailand’s Kunlavut Vitidsarn is the top seed in the men’s draw.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, India’s most consistent men’s doubles pair this year with titles in Singapore and China, face French brothers Christo and Toma Junior Popov in front of a home crowd. They went out in the first round in Denmark.
Kidambi Srikanth, who stretched world champion Alex Lanier in Odense, has an all-Indian opener against Ayush Shetty. Tanvi Sharma also meets a compatriot, Isharani Baruah.
Elsewhere in the women’s singles, Ashmita Chaliha plays China’s Han Qian Xi, Unnati Hooda faces Japan’s Riko Gunji, and Devika Sihag has a tough draw against Indonesia’s fifth seed Putri Kusuma Wardani.
Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand, world championship bronze medallists this year, open against Taiwan’s Lin Chih-Chun and Yang Chu Yun in the women’s doubles. No Indian pair is entered in the mixed doubles.