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Pointing out HS Prannoy, PV Sindhu as some of the players to watch out for, Indian Olympics and World Championship medalist shuttler Saina Nehwal is optimistic about the chances of the national badminton squad at the Asian Games.
Saina herself though, will be missing the Asian Games due to an injury. The event will start from September 23 and will go on till October 8. "All are doing extremely well, they are performing well. Specially HS Prannoy is giving back-to-back good results. Let's see, there are some tough challenges around them but I feel HS Prannoy is good and of course, PV Sindhu has always done well at the highest tournaments," said Nehwal to the media at the Global Race 2023 event in Delhi. Talking about the ups and downs in her and PV Sindhu's fitness and form, Nehwal said that it is not easy to play at the highest level for so long. "We are playing at the highest level for a long. It is not easy to do so. It takes a toll on body. Badminton is one of the toughest sports in the world physically, you have to stay fit 100 per cent to play 17-20 tournaments per year. I would say me and Sindhu are gifted as players," she added. Sindhu has played 14 BWF World Tour tournaments this year. In these, she has reached final once, semifinals and quarterfinals twice each. The rest have been dissapointing first or second round exits. She has slipped to 14th spot in BWF World Rankings. She last won Singapore Open last year. Notably, Saina has not been in good form in 2020s. Last year, she played 13 Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Tour tournaments and only reached quarterfinals once in Singapore Open. She bowed out of other tournaments mostly in first round. This year as well, she has played six BWF World Tour tournaments, getting three first-round exits and three second-round exits. She is currently ranked at world number 55 in women's singles competition. Her last BWF World Tour title win was in January 2019, when she won the Indonesia Masters. Indian badminton team for Asian Games 2023 -Mens singles: HS Prannoy and Kidambi Srikanth (individual/team), Lakshya Sen and Mithun Manjunath (team) -Mens doubles: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty and Dhruv Kapila/MR Arjun (individual/team) -Womens singles: PV Sindhu and Ashmita Chaliha (individual/team), Anupama Upadhyaya and Malvika Bansod (team) -Womens doubles: Gayatri Gopichand/Treesa Jolly and Ashwini Ponnappa/Tanisha Crasto (individual/team) -Mixed doubles: Rohan Kapoor /N Sikki Reddy and Sai Pratheek K/Tanisha Crasto. (ANI)
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