HS Prannoy will lead a rather inexperienced 26-member Indian contingent at the Australian Open 2024 badminton tournament, which gets underway in Sydney from Tuesday.
With most of the big-name Indian badminton players, including PV Sindhu, Lakshya Sen, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty and Gayatri Gopichand-Treesa Jolly, opting to give the BWF Super 500 tournament a miss, the onus will be on world No. 10 Prannoy to spearhead the Indian challenge in Sydney.
Prannoy made the men’s singles final at the Australian Open last year but lost the title decider to the People’s Republic of China’s Weng Hongyang. The Indian shuttler is the fifth seed this year.
S Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian, Kiran George, Sameer Verma and Mithun Manjunath are also in the fray in men’s singles.
Aakarshi Kashyap, meanwhile, will be the eighth seed in the women’s singles main draw, which also features Malvika Bansod, Ashmita Chaliha, Aakarshi Kashyap, Imad Farooqui Samiya and Anupama Upadhyaya.
B Sumeeth Reddy and N Sikki Reddy, meanwhile, are seeded eighth in mixed doubles while women’s doubles seventh seeds Rutaparna Panda/Swetaparna Panda have been handed a bye in the first round.
Rajain Abhimanyu/Aman Nandal are the only Indian men’s doubles team competing in Sydney.
Kidambi Srikanth is the last Indian shuttler to win a title at the Australian Open. The 2017 men’s singles champion isn’t in the entry list this year.
The Australian Open 2024 is the 16th tournament of the BWF World Tour 2024 badminton season.
Where to watch Australian Open 2024 badminton live in India
Live streaming of the Australian Open 2024 will be available on the Badminton World Federation’s official YouTube channel BWF TV and Jio Cinema. Live telecast details of the Australian Open badminton matches will be available on Sports 18 TV channels in India.
Australian Open 2024: India badminton squad
Men’s singles: S Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian, Kiran George, Raghu Mariswamy, Mithun Manjunath, Ravi, Sameer Verma, HS Prannoy, Abhishek Yeligar (Q), Shashwat Dalal (Q)
Women’s singles: Imad Farooqui Samiya, Aakarshi Kashyap, Keyura Mopati, Malvika Bansod, Anupama Upadhyaya, Ashmita Chaliha
Men’s doubles: Rajain Abhimanyu/Aman Nandal
Women’s doubles: Rutaparna Panda/Swetaparna Panda, Harshitaa Rout/Sruti Swain
Mixed doubles: B Sumeeth Reddy/N Sikki Reddy, Kona Tarun/Sri Krishna Priya Kudaravalli, Ayush Raj Gupta/Sruti Swain