Badminton World Federation on Tuesday announced the draw for BWF World Tour Finals and the seven Indian badminton players, including two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu will be competing in the event starting in Bali on Wednesday. This is India’s best representation at the tournament. In the previous BWF World Tour Finals, only two shuttlers from the country had made the cut. Notably, two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu won the inaugural BWF World Tour Finals in 2018.
The BWF World Tour Finals is the season-ending tournament of the BWF World Tour, where the top-eight players/pairs in the season’s rankings are granted entry. The players/pairs are divided into two groups of four each. Each player/pair will play every other player/pair in their group in a round-robin format, with the top-two in each group progressing to the semi-finals.
In women’s singles, reigning world champion PV Sindhu had a good draw, as she is placed alongside ‘All England Open Badminton Championships’ runner-up Pornpawee Chochuwong of Thailand, Germany’s Yvonne Li, and Line Christophersen of Denmark in Group A.
In men’s Singles, youngster Lakshya Sen faces a tough outing in his maiden Tour Finals, having been drawn alongside Tokyo 2020 champion and world No. 1 Viktor Axelsen of Denmark and world No. 2 Kento Momota of Japan.
Former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth has a relatively easier group-stage draw as he will play All England Open champion Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia, Frenchman Toma Junior Popov, and Thai youngster Kunlavut Vitidsarn.
In the men’s doubles, Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy will battle out against Olympic gold-medallists Lee Yang/Wang Chi-Lin, Thomas Cup silver-medallists Kim Astrup/Anders Rasmussen, and top-ranked ‘minions’ Marcus Gideon/Kevin Sukamuljo.
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Two-time Olympian Ashwini Ponnappa and her partner N Sikki Reddy will be making their BWF World Tour Finals debut this time.
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