BWF World Championships 2017: Easy openers for PV Sindhu and Srikanth Kidambi

The top Indian stars were presented with easy openers as the draws for the BWF World Championships 2017, scheduled to be held in Glasgow from August 21-27, got released on Wednesday.

Fourth seeded PV Sindhu and 12th seeded Saina Nehwal have first round byes. The Rio Olympic silver medallist has the World No. 41 Kim Hyo Min as her potential second round opponent. Fifth seeded Sun Yu is the only threat for the two-time World Championships bronze medallist before she reaches the semi-finals.

The 2015 runner-up Nehwal will possibly begin her campaign against the World No. 35 Sabrina Jaquet of Switzerland. On winning that match, she can come face-to-face with the second seed Sung Ji Hyun.

Nehwal got the better of the Korean the last time they played each other at the Australian Open Superseries in June.

Related: BWF World Championships 2017: PV Sindhu seeded fourth, Srikanth Kidambi eighth

Sixth seeded He Bingjiao could be Saina’s quarter-final opponent before the medal stages.

The 91st ranked Tanvi Lad faces World No. 83 Chloe Birch while the national champion Rituparna Das has the World No. 54 Airi Mikkela first up.

Srikanth has likely meeting with Son Wan Ho again

In the men’s singles draw, the eighth seed Srikanth Kidambi has relatively comfortable initial few rounds. After starting his challenge against the World No. 70 Sergey Sirant, he can come up against the 14th seeded talented Dane, Anders Antonsen.

Srikanth is likely headed for his third meeting with the top seed and World No. 1 Son Wan Ho in as many tournaments. The India No. 1 prevailed over the Korean at the Indonesia Open and the Australian Open and can find himself facing Son Wan Ho again in the quarter-finals, if the draw holds up.

13th seed Ajay Jayaram has an easy opener in the form of World No. 111 Luka Wraber. In the third round for Jayaram, the fifth seed and Olympic champion Chen Long looms large.

15th seed B Sai Praneeth has the 44th ranked Wei Nan in his first round. The Singapore Open Superseries champion has to be at this flawless best to get past the sixth seed Chou Tien Chen in the pre-quarter-finals.

Sameer Verma, the only unseeded Indian men’s singles player, has to deal with the 36th ranked Pablo Abian before a possible third round showdown with the five-time world champion Lin Dan, who is seeded seventh.

In mixed doubles, the 15th seeded Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy, who have a first round bye, could meet Prajakta Sawant and her Malaysian partner Yogendran Khrishnan in Round 2.