Modi badminton loses more stars, sheen

LUCKNOW: Pullouts continued to bother the organisers of the Syed Modi International Badminton Championships on Monday as the qualifying rounds of the BWF World Tour Super 300 event are set to begin on Tuesday.

Rio Olympics silver medallist PV Sindhu and silver medallist at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games Kidambi Srikanth have already withdrawn from the $150,000 event for different reasons.

World No 4 Sindhu wants to focus on next month’s BWF World Tour Finals in China and needs time to get ready while Srikanth is struggling with injuries.

The trend continued on Monday. World No 11 and third seed in women’s singles, Sayaka Takahashi of Japan pulled out along with third seeded men’s doubles pair of Takuto Inoie and Yuki Kaneko.

Newly crowned champion at the Dubai International Challenge on Sunday, Vladimir Malkov of Russia was left stranded at the Dubai airport after he realised late that he didn’t have an Indian visa. Vladimir had beaten India’s Subhankar Dey 21-10, 21-15 in the Dubai Challenge.

“Sudden pull outs have made things a bit difficult for us as we have to update the seedings and replace players in the draw,” a Badminton Association of India (BAI) official said. “It will take time but I am sure we will update everything soon,” he added.

The presence of London Olympics bronze medallist Saina Neh- wal in women’s singles and defending champion Sameer Verma in men’s singles will now be the biggest attraction of the event. Saina, who has won three singles titles here — 2008, 2014 and 2015 — will open her campaign against world No 112 Kate Foo Kune of Mauritius.

Chinese shuttlers such as 2012 Olympic champion Li Xuerui, Han Yue and Zhang Yiman are likely to pose a challenge to Saina, the two-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist.

For Verma, the Syed Modi event is an opportunity to qualify for the World Tour Finals. “Retaining the title is on my mind as this will help me qualify for the World Tour Finals,” said Verma, who has been in good form, especially after winning the Swiss Open and Hyderabad Open.