Badminton
All England Open: No Indian singles player seeded for first time in 13 years
The last time no Indian singles shuttler was seeded in All England Open was in 2009.
Kidambi Srikanth and PV Sindhu (Source: Getty)
The oldest tournament in the world of badminton - the All England Open, is all set to kickstart on Tuesday at the Arena Birmingham. Only two Indians in history - Prakash Padukone in 1980 and Pullela Gopichand in 2001, have ever managed to taste victory in the prestigious tournament.
The previous edition of All England Open in 2022 was quite an eventful one for India with Lakshya Sen finishing as the runner-up in men's singles and a young women's doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayathri Gopichand announcing their arrival on the highest level with a semifinal appearance.
However, things look a bit bleak for India going into the 2023 All England Open.
A majority of the country's top shuttlers including the likes of Lakshya Sen, PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth, HS Prannoy and others have looked far from their best this year so far. A few doubles specialists like Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, Arjun MR, and Ishaan Bhatnagar have entered the tournament after long injury layoff.
In fact, all the Indian singles shuttlers will enter the 2023 All England Open unseeded.
Yes, for the first time in 13 years no Indian singles player will be seeded in the tournament. The last time this happened was way back in 2009 when a young Saina Nehwal had just started out in her international career.
It was the London Olympics bronze medallist who started the trend of Indians being seeded heading into the All England Open back in 2010. Since then at least one Indian singles player was seeded every year in either men's or women's section. In 2023, there will be none.
Though the singles star remain unseeded, the men's doubles pair of Satwik and Chirag are seeded sixth in their event continuing India's run of 14 consecutive tournaments with at least one seeded player.
| Edition | Seeded players in singles |
| 2010 | Saina Nehwal |
| 2011 | Saina Nehwal |
| 2012 | Saina Nehwal |
| 2013 | Saina Nehwal |
| 2014 | Saina Nehwal |
| 2015 | Saina Nehwal, Kidambi Srikanth |
| 2016 | Saina Nehwal |
| 2017 | Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu |
| 2018 | PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth |
| 2019 | Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth |
| 2020 | PV Sindhu |
| 2021 | Kidambi Srikanth, PV Sindhu |
| 2022 | PV Sindhu |
One may argue that seedings rarely matter in badminton and it cannot be denied. Last year an unseeded Lakshya Sen reached the final of men's singles while an unseeded pair of Treesa and Gayathri made it to the semifinals, but being unseeded is surely a testament to the poor run of form of top Indian shutters in 2023 so far.
