After HS Prannoy gave India a winning start to the South East Asian leg by emerging triumphant in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday, the team arrived in Bangkok on Monday for the Thailand Open BWF Super-500 Tournament. Prannoy skipped Thailand and is expected to compete in Singapore and Indonesia tournaments next month.
In Prannoy's absence, PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth, Lakshya Sen and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty will lead the Indian challenge at Bangkok. With a lot of ranking points at stake, Indian shuttlers are carefully choosing the tournaments.
Asian champions Satwik Chirag, who are the top seeds in men's doubles, would be aiming for a strong finish.
The 2019 champions have to get past several top class pairs to finish on the podium.
Sindhu, who lost in the semifinals of Malaysia Masters last week, got a tough draw at this tournament. The world No. 13 begins against Michelli Li of Canada and is expected to face sixth seed Wang Zhi Yi of China in the second round and Carolina Marin of Spain in the quarters. The former world champion improved a lot in the last few weeks and if she clears these two hurdles she may run into top seed An Se Young of South Korea in the semifinals. Sindhu never defeated An and had won only one game in six matches.
Five Indians made it to the main draw in men's singles. Srikanth got a tough first round opponent in Weng Hong Yang. The Chinese shuttler lost to Prannoy in the final on Sunday. If Srikanth gets past Hong Yang he may face Chinese third seed Shi Yu Qi in the second round. World No. 22 Lakshya squares up against world No. 22 Wang Tzu Wei of Chinese Taipei while Sai Praneeth plays Christo Popov of France.
Orleans Masters champion Priyanshu Rajawat begins against Ng Tze Yong of Malaysia and national champion Mithin Manjunath may find it tough against second seed Kunlavut Vitidsarn of Thailand.
