India’s PV Sindhu was handed a fairly comfortable route to the semi-finals as the Badminton World Federation announced the draws for the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics on Friday.
The double Olympic medallist, seeded tenth in women’s singles, was drawn in Group M alongside Kritin Kuuba of Estonia and Fathimath Razzaq of Maldives. The winner of the group will advance to the pre-quarter-finals.
Post the group stage, which is expected to be fairly straight-forward for Sindhu, the Indian is likely to face off against China’s He Bing Jiao in a possible Round of 16 clash, followed by a possible match against the other Chinese shuttler Chen Yu Fei in the quarter-finals.
Though both of these will be expected to test Sindhu to the best of her abilities, with the Khel Ratna awardee having lost her last match to both the players respectively, the Indian has avoided being put in the same half of the draw as top seeded An Se Young, Tai Tzu Ying and Carolina Marin. Sindhu can only face the trio in the semi-final stage.
Sindhu had lost to Tai Tzu in the semi-finals of the Tokyo Olympics, while Marin had ousted her in the final of the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Meanwhile, HS Prannoy too was handed a safe group in men’s singles. Seeded 13th, he is drawn alongside Le Duc Phat of Vietnam and Fabian Roth of Germany in Group K.
His troubles, however, would start in the Round of 16 with a potential clash against either the third seed Jonatan Christie of Indonesia or compatriot Lakshya Sen.
Sen, who is unseeded in the competition, faces a tough task in Group L against Christie. The last time he beat the Indonesian was back in 2020 and has since never gotten the better of him.
To make it worse, Sen will also have veteran Kevin Cordon, who will be playing his fifth Olympic games in Group L. The 37-year-old from Guatemala had reached the semi-finals of the 2020 Tokyo Games, losing to Anthony Ginting in the bronze medal match.
Besides, Sen’s group is only one of the two with four players – Belgium’s Julien Carraggi – being the fourth player.
The Indian women’s doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto, too, have been handed a comparatively comfortable draw.
The pair will be up against fourth seeds Chiharu Shida and Nami Matsuyama of Japan, South Korea’s Kim So Yeong and Kong Hee Yong and the lower-ranked Setyana Mapasa and Angela Yu of Australia.
Two good matches for a top two finish in the four-pair group will take Ponnappa and Crasto to the quarter-finals.
Meanwhile, the men’s doubles draw which was postponed was held on Monday.
The third seeded Indian pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty were drawn in Group C along with France’s Lucas Corvee-Ronan Labar, Indonesia’s Fajar Alfian-Muhammad Ardianto, and Germany’s Mark Lamsfuss-Marvin Seidel. Top two pairs from the group will advance to the quarter-finals.
The men’s doubles draw was earlier postponed after Corvee and Labar had accused the Badminton World Federation of miscalculating the Road to Paris rankings and approached the Court of Arbitration of Sports.
The court had then ordered the Badminton World Federation to ask the International Olympic Committee to add Labar and Corvee as the 17th men’s doubles pair at the Paris Olympics, thereby helping the hosts field two teams in the event.
“Following a Court of Arbitaration of Sport hearing, BWF will conduct the men’s doubles draw on another date yet to be confirmed,” the Badminton World Federation said in a statement on Friday.
This development comes after the French pair of Ronan Labar and Lucas Corvee had accused the world body Labar and Corvee alleged that a miscalculation from BWF wrongly placed them below another French pair of Christo Popov and Toma Popov in the rankings.
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