It may only be a Grand Prix Gold(GPG) event, but with just over 45 days to go for the qualifying dates for Rio 2016 to end, the Swiss Open GPG will assume larger significance for a lot of players.
India will have a slightly weakened lineup in the Men’s Singles with last year’s champion Kidambi Srikanth pulling out of the competition and Parupalli Kashyap yet to recover from his injury and so the hopes will be pinned on the impressive Sai Praneeth, Ajay Jayaram and Sameer Verma and HS Prannoy.
It is, however, in the Women’s Singles that India have a very good chance of winning some silverware. PV Sindhu will feature in the main draw as the 6th seed, but she will have company in the form of Saina Nehwal, who is the top seed.
The 25-year-old, who played her first competitive tournament of 2016 last week at the All England Championships, will look to get some more confidence under her belt ahead of the India Open Super Series at the end of this month.
Sadly, though, even as the Singles contingent looks competent if not outright favourites to go all the way, the same can't be said about the Doubles, where there will be no representation in any of the categories.
In totality, it promises to be an interesting few days and hopefully, at the end of it, we would have had an Indian standing on top of the podium in either categories in Basel.
