All eyes on Saina, Srikanth
Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth will start favourites when they spearhead the Indian challenge at the Syed Modi International tournament, which has lost a bit of sheen with the pullout of Olympic silver medallist P V Sindhu. The tournament begins on Tuesday.
With Sindhu missing, India will have two defending champions in the tournament with Sameer Verma looking to retain the title to enhance his chances of qualifying for the year-ending World Tour Final. The mixed doubles pair of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy, too, will eye a repeat.
Sindhu decided to skip the event to focus on next month's World Tour Finals in China but there won't be any shortage of star power when the World Tour Super 300 event gets underway with the qualifiers.
In Sindhu's absence, Saina will be the cynosure of all eyes and the celebrated Indian has been in decent form this year having won a gold at the Commonwealth Games and a bronze at the Asian Games. She reached the finals at the Indonesia Masters in January and Denmark in October.
Srikanth, too, will be looking for his first title of the season after being in rampaging form last year, winning four titles. The Indian has been in decent form, winning a silver at the Commonwealth Games and reaching the quarterfinals consistently.
The Indian will hope to claim the men's singles title after winning it in 2016 following three final appearances. However, he will face tough resistance from second seed H S Prannoy and Sameer, who won titles at Swiss Open and Hyderabad Open. Srikanth is likely to meet Parupalli Kashyap in the second round if the 2014 Commonwealth Games champion manages to beat Thailand's Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk in the opener.