Malaysia Masters 2019: Saina Nehwal, Kidambi Srikanth lead India's charge as Kento Momota, Tai Tzu Ying headline Kuala Lumpur event

Another season, another tournament on the crowded international badminton circuit. At the end of the 23-day Premier Badminton League (PBL), which actually obtruded upon the period of rest that shuttlers were supposed to enjoy between the end of the last season and the start of a new one, the action moves to the Axiata Arena in Kuala Lumpur Sports City for the Malaysia Masters championships from Wednesday. Most of the world’s top badminton players have chosen to participate in this BWF World Tour Super 500 event, though a handful of the pre-eminent Indians, including PV Sindhu, HS Prannoy, B Sai Praneeth (a last-minute withdrawal) and Sameer Verma, have opted to give the $350,000 prize money tournament a miss, ostensibly to concentrate their energies on the more lucrative Indonesia Masters, starting in Jakarta on 22 January. [caption id=“attachment_5563921” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Kidambi Srikanth. Reuters[/caption] The Malaysia Masters draws are headed by the world’s No 1-ranked singles players, Japan’s Kento Momota and Chinese Taipei’s Tai Tzu Ying, and also by the top-ranked doubles combinations — Indonesia’s Marcus Fernaldi Gideon with Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo, and Japan’s Yuki Fukushima with Sayaka Hirota. It is only in the mixed doubles that the top two Chinese combinations are missing from the action, and Japan’s Yuta Watanabe and Arisa Higashino have been given pride of place. The Indian challenge is spearheaded by World No 8, Kidambi Srikanth, who appeared to have returned to top form during the just-concluded PBL, in which he remained unbeaten in eight matches against some of the world’s best players. The 25-year-old failed to win a single international title in 2018, after having dominated 2017 with four Superseries title wins and one runner-up position. “My first target is to be fully fit, and I am working hard to achieve full fitness,” said Srikanth, shortly after guiding his team Bengaluru Raptors to their maiden PBL title on Sunday. “My confidence had gone down in the second half of 2018 because I had a couple of niggles and just could not get the victories that mattered. But now, I have recovered fully, and am hoping I can stay injury-free.” Seeded seventh, and placed in the lower half of the men’s singles draw, Srikanth first runs into the redoubtable Ng Ka Long Angus of Hong Kong. The two have a 1-1 career win-loss record, but have not bumped into each other on the global circuit in nearly three years since the Indian notched a 21-16, 21-12 triumph over Angus at the Australian Open in June 2016. The winner of this opening round encounter takes on either Mark Caljouw of the Netherlands or Hong Kong’s Wong Wing Ki Vincent, who run into each other on Wednesday. A second-round win will catapult Srikanth into a quarter-final meeting with fourth-seeded Son Wan Ho of South Korea in what would be a battle between two former World No 1s. All these players are bunched in second-seeded Chinese star Shi Yuqi’s half of the draw. The lone Indian in the women’s singles, Saina Nehwal, also merits the seventh seeding, and should have a clear run-through until the quarter-final stage, where she is expected to run into second-seeded Japanese, Nozomi Okuhara, the 2017 world champion. Saina opens her campaign against Deng Joy Xuan, against whom she owns a 1-0 winning record, having beaten the Hong Kong player in three tough games at the India Open in January 2014. Should the Indian repeat her win of five years back, she will play either another Hong Kong player, Yip Pui Yin, or a qualifier, expected to be Indonesia’s Ruselli Hartawan. Saina has a comfortable 8-2 career win-loss record against the Hong Kong player, with victories in their last seven meetings. The top two Indian pairs, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy with Chirag Shetty, and Manu Attri with Sumeeth Reddy, who originally featured in the men’s doubles main draw, both withdrew at the very last minute. However, Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy were given a lung-opener in the women’s doubles against Hong Kong’s Ng Tsz Yau and Yuen Sin Ying, with the sixth-seeded Japanese pair of Shiho Tanaka and Koharu Yonemoto awaiting them in the second round. In the mixed doubles, the solitary Indian pair of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Sikki Reddy has been pitted against a qualifier twosome in their opening outing. Should they win, they would go on to face the Commonwealth Games silver medallists, Marcus Ellis and Lauren Smith of England, seeded eighth. Meanwhile, at the time of writing, two Indians each in the qualifying rounds of the men’s and women’s singles were making a spirited bid to win the two rounds needed to earn a spot in the main draw. Parupalli Kashyap and Subhankar Dey featured in the men’s singles preliminaries, while Mugdha Agrey and Rituparna Das were in the fray for a place in the women’s singles main draw. On Tuesday morning, Kashyap had managed to clear one of the two rounds he needed to win, with a convincing 21-14, 21-9 victory over Frenchman Lucas Claerbout. Later in the day, he will meet Russian Vladimir Malkov, who was promoted from the reserves, and ended up knocking out another Frenchman, Lucas Corvee, by a 13-21, 21-12, 21-11 scoreline. Kashyap’s compatriot Dey, however, faced a much more challenging first outing against Thailand’s Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk, and succumbed to the aggressive left-handed Thai by a 18-21, 13-21 margin. All the first round matches in the main draws are scheduled to be played at the Axiata Arena from Wednesday morning.