Badminton
Malaysia Open 2023: Prannoy v Lakshya in first round, PV Sindhu faces Carolina Marin
HS Prannoy and Lakshya Sen will start the season opener Malaysia Open 2023 facing each other while PV Sindhu will face old rival Carolina Marin.
Indian men's singles players will start the season with tough draws in the BWF World tour season opener Malaysia Open 2023. World rank 8 HS Prannoy will face Lakshya Sen in the first round while Kidambi Srikanth will start his season against Japanese shuttler Kenta Nishimoto.
The Petronas Malaysia Open, which is part of the HSBC BWF World Tour series is a Super 1000 series and will feature all the top stars of the Badminton world from 10th January 2023 to 15th January 2023.
Men's Singles: Top Indian shuttlers HS Prannoy and seventh seed Lakshya Sen will battle it out in the first round of the tournament and they might face Lee Zii Jia or Kodai Naraoka in the semi-finals.
Kidambi Srikanth will start his season against Kenta Nishimoto and might face Kenta Momota or Viktor Axelsen in the quarter-finals.
In other interesting clashes, World champion Viktor Axelsen takes on Ramus Gemke in first round and Kodai Naraoka will face Lee Zii Jia in the first round.
Women's Singles: India's top women shuttler sixth-seeded PV Sindhu will face her old nemesis Carolina Marin in the opening round of the tournament and might come across Olympic champion Chen Yu Fei in the quarter-finals. If she moves ahead, An Se Young might be waiting for her in the semi-finals.
Saina Nehwal will be up against Han Yue of China and she can face Tai Tzu Ying in the second round.
Other Indians Malvika Bansod and Aakarshi Kashyap will be facing opponents ranked higher than them. Malvika will start her campaign against second-seeded An Se Young in the first round while Aakarshi Kashyap will face Wen Chi Hsu of Chinese Taipei in her first game.
Men's Doubles: Top Indian pair Satwik Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty will start their campaign against the Korean pair of Choi Sol Gyu/Kim Won Ho. The first round will be tricky against the World rank 9 Korean pair.
Currently ranked World number 5 in the category, Satwik/Chirag might face Ben Lane/Sean Vendy or Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik in the quarter-finals.
The other pair in the category MR Arjun/Dhruv Kapila withdrew their name from the tournament as MR Arjun is injured.
Women's Doubles: Indian pair of Treesa Jolly/Gayatri Gopichand is clubbed in the same quarter as the top seed Chen Qing Chen/Jia Yi Fan.
They will start their campaign against the pair of Yeung Nga Ting/ Yeung Pui Lam and might face the eight-seed pair of Tan Pearly/Thinnah Muralitharan in the second round.
Another Indian duo Ashwini Bhat and Shikha Gautam start their campaign against the Thai pair Supissara Paewsampran/ Puttita Supajirakul.