World Badminton Championships 2017: PV Sindhu given 1st-round bye; Kidambi Srikanth faces Sergey Sirant

New Delhi: Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu and former World No 1 Saina Nehwal received first-round byes at the World Championships starting in Glasgow, Scotland from 21 August. Two-time bronze medallist PV Sindhu will open her campaign against either Korea’s Kim Hyo Min or Egypt’s Hadia Hosny in the second round and is likely to meet China’s Sun Yu for a place at the quarterfinals. [caption id=“attachment_3364464” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File photo of PV Sindhu. PTI[/caption] The 2015 World Championships silver medallist Saina will take on the winner of the match between Switzerland’s Sabrina Jaquet and Ukraine’s Natalya Voytsekh and is expected to clash with Korean second seed Sung Ji Hyun for a place in the pre- quarterfinals. India’s top male shuttler Kidambi Srikanth, who clinched two successive titles at Indonesia and Australia and reached the finals at Singapore Open, will open his campaign against Russia’s Sergey Sirant. Among other Indians in men’s singles, 15th seed B Sai Praneeth, who won his maiden Super Series title beating Srikanth at Singapore, will face Hong Kong’s Wei Nan, while Ajay Jayaram will take on Austrian Luka Wraber in the opening round. Sameer Verma, playing his maiden World Championships after being given a direct entry in the main draw, will square off against Spain’s Pablo Abian. In women’s singles, national champion Rituparna Das will meet Finnish shuttler Airi Mikkela in the opening round, while Tanvi Lad will fight it out against England’s Chloe Birch. Rio Olympians Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy will be up against Korean pair of Chung Eui Seok and Kim Dukyoung, while Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty will face Japanese combo of Hiroyuki Endo and Yuta Watanabe in the opening round of men’s doubles. In mixed doubles, 15th seed Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy got a bye and will face either Chinese Taipei’s Lu Ching Yao and Chiang Kai Hsin or Yogendran Khrishnan and Prajakta Sawant. In women’s doubles, Ashwini Ponnappa and Sikki are pitted against Indonesia’s Ririn Amelia and Malaysia’s Anna Ching Yik Cheong in the opening round.