Johor Bahru, Mar 24:
With top brass skipping the tournament, young guns of Indian badminton, including Sourabh Varma and Arundhati Pantawane, will brace up for the challenge when they begin their campaign at the USD 120,000 Malaysian Grand Prix Gold, starting with the qualifiers at Pasir Gudang here tomorrow.
After back-to-back tournaments, top Indian shuttlers, including Saina Nehwal, P V Sindhu and Parupalli Kashyap, have decided to skip the event. In their absence, it would be the young crops like Sourabh, H S Prannoy, Sai Praneeth B and RMV Gurusaidutt who will lead the Indian challenge at the Stadium Perbandaran Pasir Gudang.
Sourabh has been in good form as he clinched three titles — TATA Open, Austrian International Challenge and Iran Fajr International Challenge recently. Seeded eighth, Sourabh will start his campaign against Hong Kong’s Yan Kit Chan in the men’s singles event here.
Prannoy too has been in good touch as he reached the semifinals of the Syed Modi International tournament and finished runners-up in TATA Open late last year. This season too, he had a few good wins when he defeated compatriot Kashyap in German Open.
The 21-year-old lanky shuttler, seeded seventh, will battle it out against Malaysian Jiann Shiarng Chiang in the first round.
Sai Praneeth B, seeded 12th, who reached the quarters in TATA Open and Syed Modi tournament, will squareoff with Indonesia’s Mahbub Thomi Azizan and sixth seed RMV Gurusaidutt will open his campaign against a qualifier. (PTI)
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