Badminton
BAI announces selection trial dates for Thomas & Uber Cup, CWG and Asian Games
BAI has announced the selection trial dates for all important upcoming badminton tournaments. In consequence, players have also been withdrawn from Korea Masters.
The 2018 Commonwealth Games gold medal-winning Indian badminton team (Source: Getty Images)
The 2022 badminton calendar is just about getting jam-packed with a string of important events lined up for the year. In light of this, the Badminton Association of India (BAI) has announced the dates for the selection trials for the upcoming Thomas & Uber Cup Finals, the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games.
Set to held in New Delhi from 15th to 20th of April at the Indira Gandhi Stadium, the badminton selection trials will be done to select the squad that will be heading for the upcoming prestigious tournaments. As a result of this, the BAI has also decided to withdraw all Indian shuttlers from the Korea Masters (12th-17th April) as the dates are clashing with the selection trials.
The national governing body will also be "finalising probables for the senior core group for the 2024 Olympic Games" during the trials.
Indian badminton is currently bustling with talent with youngsters also beginning to make a prominent mark with the likes of Ashmita Chaliha, Malvika Bansod, the young doubles pair of Gayatri Gopichand/Treesa Jolly, the mixed doubles pair of Ishaan Bhatnagar/Tanisha Crasto making decent strides up the BWF rankings.
The objective of the Selection Trials, as stated by BAI, is to select the team for the Thomas & Uber Cup, 2022 Commonwealth Games, 2022 Asian Games and the BAI Core Group teams.
The group picked for the BAI Core team will be provided with BAI or SAI assistance for training and tournament participation.
Moreover, players who have notched up notable performances in the past three months and those who are inside the Top 15 of the BWF rankings - like Sindhu, Srikanth, Lakshya Sen, Satwik-Chirag will gain a direct selection.
This means that double Olympic medallist P V Sindhu (World No. 7), world championships silver and bronze medallists Kidambi Srikanth (World No. 12) and Lakshya Sen (World No. 9) and men's pairing of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy (World No. 7) are the only ones assured of a place in the teams for the big-ticket events. Among others, London Games bronze medallist Saina Nehwal, currently ranked 23rd, and Tokyo Olympian B Sai Praneeth, who is ranked 19th, will have to go through the trials.
On the other hand, players who are between World No. 16 to World No. 50 on the BWF rankings, the top 16 in singles and top 8 in doubles in the national rankings and players who were a part of the core group selected by BAI/SAI in 2019 are eligible to try their luck in the selection trials.
