PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth will again spearhead Indian challenge at Indonesia Open 1000 event after they lost the semi-finals of Indonesia Masters to Akane Yamaguchi and Anders Antonsen in a one sided affair respectively. Saina Nehwal will again miss out from the action as she has not recovered well from the injury. A prize money of USD 850,000 awaits the winner of the tournament which comprises of five disciplines- Mixed doubles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles, men’s singles and women’s singles.
Srikanth will be eager to continue his good run of form and surpass the challenge he faces from top 10 in the world to stand a chance to win the tournament. Sindhu has shown form after returning from halt that she took after a historic Olympic bronze medal but she will be looking to clinch a title win to improve her ranking and gain more confidence.
HS Prannoy was down with Covid-19 last year and his performance dipped considerably but a win against Olympic champion Victor Axelsen last week will prove to be a confidence booster for him going into the tournament. Sai Praneeth has not been in the best of form in the recent while and he will be eager to get to winning ways. Sameer Verma will be back to action after missing the Indonesia Master 750 event and will be looking forward to do well in his return. Parupalli Kashyap will be up against an in form Loh Kean Yew of Singapore in the first round.
Lakshya Sen is one of those few players who has been a product of Prakash Padukone Academy in Bengaluru and his performance has just improved in the recent while but the challenge of world number 1 in Kenta Momota awaits him in the first round. Its worth mentioning that Sen defeated world number 10 in the Indonesia Master 750 event before going down to Momota in the pre-quarter finals. The Almora shuttler reached the finals of Dutch Open this year but lost to Loh Kean Yew in straight sets. He is one of the rising stars of Indian badminton and its just a matter of time when he will be India’s number one in men’s singles.
In men’s doubles Satwik Sairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty are seeded sixth and got bye in the first round and they will be the lone Indian challenge after MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila were eliminated in the first round. In mixed doubles, Sikki Reddy will pair with MR Arjun while the experienced Ashwini Ponappa will pair with Sumeeth Reddy. Juhi Dewangan and Venkat Gaurav Prasad is another Indian pairing when it comes to mixed doubles.
The women’s doubles pair of Sikki Reddy and Ashwini Ponappa will be up against fifth seed Stoeva sisters in the first round.
Live streaming and TV broadcasters
The streaming and TV broadcasting of the event will begin from round of 16 which commences from Wednesday(24 November 2021). The action will begin from 9:30 am on Star Sports network and fans can watch Live streaming on the Disney+Hotstar app in India.
For rest of the world, stream the action on BWF TV- https://www.youtube.com/user/bwf?app=desktop
UK- BTSport
US- Olympic channel
China- CCTV5
