The $300,000 Yonex Sunrise India Open Superseries lost two of its biggest stars on its eve as the top seed and reigning world champion Carolina Marin and the All England winner Nozomi Okuhara both pulled out on Monday. World No. 11 PV Sindhu stands to benefit from their withdrawals as Marin was her first round opponent and the third-ranked Okuhara was a potential rival for the quarter-finals.
With the Rio Olympics being less than five months away, it is expected that the top shuttlers will be careful not to overburden themselves.
Earlier on Sunday, it was confirmed that the India No. 2 Parupalli Kashyap will not be able to play at the only Superseries event at home as his knee injury has not healed fully yet. He has been replaced by compatriot B Sai Praneeth, who caused a huge upset at the All England Championships a little over two weeks back by toppling the second seed Lee Chong Wei in the first round.
The doubles draws too were hard hit by the last-minute withdrawals of some of the accomplished pairs. The mixed doubles section was particularly affected as the All England winners Praveen Jordan and Debby Susanto and the top-seeded combine of Tontowi Ahmad and Liliyana Natsir are no longer in the draw.
The other high-profile seeded doubles teams to opt out include the fourth seeds and two-time world champions Tian Qing/Zhao Yunlei in the women’s doubles draw. In men’s doubles, the third seeds Hiroyuki Endo/Kenichi Hayakawa and sixth seeds Xiaolong Liu/Zihan Qiu followed suit.
The qualification rounds of the India Open will get under way from Tuesday with the first round of main draw action beginning on Wednesday. The Indian challenge will be spearheaded by Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth both of whom are the defending singles champions.
