Arctic Open Badminton: Lakshya Sen, Satwik/Chirag withdraw; PV Sindhu in action

Asian Games gold medal-winning men's doubles duo Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty and men's singles star Lakshya Sen decided to withdraw from the Arctic Open, a BWF Super 500 event, scheduled to start on Tuesday.

Youngster Priyanshu Rajawat, the men's doubles pair MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila, and the women's duo of Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly also pulled out.

Kidambi Srikanth and PV Sindhu, however, are the two big names who will compete at the event in Finland. Youngsters such as Mithun Manjunath, Kiran George, Rutuparna Panda/Sriparna Panda, and Tanisha Crasto/Ashwini Ponappa will be part of the main draw.

In men's singles, Srikanth will face off against Max Weisskirchen of Germany in his first round and has a possible match-up with world champion Kunlavut Vitidsarn in the quarter-finals.

Manjunath and George will start their campaigns against Weng Hong Yang and Toma Popov Junior respectively.

Sindhu will face a familiar foe in Nozomi Okuhara in the first round and will look to start on a winning note. Malvika Bansod will face Supainda Katethong of Thailand and Aakarshi Kashyap will take on Lianne Tan of Belgium.

In women's doubles, Tanisha Crasto and Ashwini Ponappa will start their campaign against the fifth-seeded Japanese pair of Rena Miyaura and Ayako Sakuramoto while the Panda sisters, Rutaparna and Sriparna, take on seventh-seeded Liu Sheng Shu and Tan Ning.

Coming on the back of a historic badminton campaign at the Asian Games 2023, the Indian women's shuttlers will draw inspiration from the medals in Hangzhou, China, and perform better.