Badminton Association of India recently announced an eight-member squad that will participate in three upcoming events that will be held in January 2021 in Bangkok. As COVID-19 has impacted all sports in general but with precautions kept in place we will see eight Indian upcoming Olympic aspirants competing in Yonex Thailand Open from January 12-17th 2021 including the likes of PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal. The team will also include B Sai Praneeth, Kidambi Srikanth, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, Chirag Shetty, Ashwini Ponappa, and N Sikki Reddy.
After Yonex Thailand Open they will be competing in Toyota Thailand Open scheduled from January 19th to 24th 2021 followed by BWF World Tour finals scheduled in January from 27th -31st 2021. As Srikanth is the only Indian player out of these eight shuttlers who played Denmark Open in October amid this pandemic time and for the rest of the players it will not be easy to find their groove back as they will be returning to the Badminton Court for any International tournament after a period of one year.
“We are very happy to see badminton finally getting back on the court. It gives us hope that tournaments can eventually make a steady comeback in near future. Most of our players haven’t played tournaments in the last 7-8 months however, they have been training to the best of their abilities at the camp. The purpose of sending a full-strength team in these tournaments so that players can get the much-needed tournament practice ahead of the Olympic qualifiers,” BAI General Secretary Ajay Singhania said.
The team will be traveling under the guidance of singles coaches Agus Dwi Santoso and Park Tae Sang and doubles coach Dwi Kristiawan along with respective support staff and officials. The Indian team is expected to do well in the upcoming Olympics 2021 as they have some world-class players in their lineup who rose to the occasion when it is needed the most.
