[1]With top international players giving the tournament a miss, home favourites Saina Nehwal and Chetan Anand will look to win the India Open Grand Prix Gold badminton event which starts with the qualifying round here on Tuesday.
The event will also be an opportunity for rookie Indian shuttlers like seventh seed R.M.V. Gurusaidutt, sixth seed Anand Pawar and eighth seed Jayaram Ajay to get some valuable ranking points in the $120,000 event, the main draw of which commences on Wednesday.
World number 19 Chetan has been given the top seeding in the men’s singles, while Saina, ranked sixth in the world, is the top seed in the women’s singles.
Among other Indians, third seed P. Kashyap, fourth seed Arvind Bhat and fifth seed Anup Sridhar will also look to cash in on the opportunity.
With no top pair around, mixed doubles specialists Jwala Gutta and V. Diju will look to make the most of the opportunity. The second seeded men’s doubles pair of Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas will be favoured to go all the way.
Links:
[1] http://103.241.136.51/sp1jpg-757