Two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu is the only seeded Indian singles player at the Indonesia Masters badminton tournament which starts on November 16 in Bali. (More Badminton News)
Sindhu will be heading the Indian challenge in the absence of compatriots Saina Nehwal and Sameer Verma, who are out due to injuries.
PV Sindhu, who won an Olympics bronze at Tokyo 2020, has been seeded third, the men’s doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy are seeded sixth.
The Indonesia Masters will be the eighth event according to the 2021 BWF World Tour calendar as several tournaments got canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this year.
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The Super 750 event, which carries a prize money USD 600,000, will be live telecast on Star Sports channels – Star Sports 2 HD and Star Sports 3. Day's matches start at 9:30 AM. The Indonesia Masters live streaming will be available on Disney+ Hotstar. All the matches will be played at Bali International Convention Center in Nusa Dua.
Focus will be on Kidambi Srikanth and Lakshya Sen, who had reached the semifinals of HYLO Open in Germany.
Lakshya, who also finished runner-up at the Dutch Open, will meet Japan’s Kanta Tsuneyama in his opening round, while Kidambi Srikanth faces a qualifier in his opening Round of 16 encounter.
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PV Sindhu reached the quarterfinals and semifinals at Denmark and France before skipping the HYLO Open. The 2019 World Championship in Switzerland was Sindhu’s last title. She reached the final at the Swiss Open earlier this year but it ended with a defeat.
PV Sindhu faces Thailand’s Supanida Katethong in her women’s singles opener. If all goes well, a clash against top-seeded Japanese Akane Yamaguchi could be on the cards for Sindhu in the semifinals.
In the men’s doubles competition, sixth seeds Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will lock horns against Malaysia’s Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi.
The women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy start with a match against Denmark’s Alexandra Boje and Mette Poulsen. In mixed doubles, Ashwini has paired up with B Sumeeth Reddy and Sikki will partner Dhruv Kapila.
