Star Indian shuttlers PV Sindhu and Lakshya Sen will enter the Canada Open World Tour Super 500 tournament, starting here on Tuesday, aiming to strike a chord and grab valuable ranking points in the ongoing Olympic qualification cycle.
Two-time Olympic medalist and former world champion Sindhu is struggling to find form while returning from injury. Sindhu, a former world number two, currently has a BWF women’s singles ranking of 12th and has to make up for the tournaments she missed due to injury in the Paris Olympic qualification cycle (May 1, 2023 to April 28, 2024).
The 27-year-old had suffered a stress fracture during her gold medal win at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games last year and is still battling to regain full fitness. She was part of the Indian team that won a bronze medal at the Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championships in Doha in February but has missed a few World Tour events this year.
His best performance this year was a silver medal at the Madrid Masters Super 300 tournament in April. After this, she was eliminated in the first round of two tournaments while in one she had to face defeat in the second round. The draw here is comparatively easy for Sindhu. She will face local contender Talia Ng in the first round.
Sindhu is likely to face eighth seed Nozomi Okahara of Japan, against whom she has nine wins and eight losses, in the quarter-finals. Sindhu has found a place in the draw of top seed Akane Yamaguchi. Japan’s Yamaguchi defeated Sindhu at the Singapore Open last month but despite this the Indian’s win-loss record against her is 14-10.
Commonwealth Games champion Lakshya Sen has also dropped out of the top 10 following first round losses in a few tournaments this year. World No. 19 Lakshya made a first-round exit in four tournaments and his best performance this year was a quarter-final finish at the Indonesia Masters in January.
Lakshya had undergone a nose surgery after the World Championships in August last year and since then has been struggling to find form. He reported that during the eight months following the surgery, he suffered several bouts of illness and allergies.
Lakshya told BWF, ‘The recovery process has not been very good. Whenever I used to train, I used to get injured or sick. After that I had to take a step back because in the first two months I had no idea that it would be so serious. I made a lot of changes regarding my foot position and training load.
Unlike Sindhu, the road to the goal will not be easy. He will face second seed Kunlavut Witidsarn of Thailand in the first round. The Thailand player won a silver medal at the World Championships in Tokyo last year and is also a three-time junior world champion.
In the men’s doubles, the Indian challenge will be spearheaded by Krishna Prasad Garga and Vishnuvardhan Panjala, who will open their campaign against the French pair of Julien Maio and William Villeger. The Indian pair had crashed out in the first round of the Taipei Open Super 300 tournament last month.
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