The Badminton World Championships 2023 draw was held on Thursday at the Badminton World Federation (BWF) headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The 28th edition of the Worlds is scheduled to be played between August 21-27 in Copenhagen. The tournament will have over 375 shuttlers from 55 countries competing in five different categories – men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles.
Two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu (16th seed), the only Indian to have won the World Championships so far (in 2019), has been awarded a bye in the first round. She will be taking on either Vietnam’s Thuy Linh Nguyen or Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara in the round that follows.
Second seeds Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have also received a bye. The World No. 2 men’s doubles pairing will clash with either Ireland’s Joshua Magee/Paul Reynolds or Australia’s Kenneth Zhe Hooi Choo/Ming Chuen Lim in the second round
The star trio of HS Prannoy, Lakshya Sen, and Kidambi Srikanth from India will be in action in men’s singles. In the first round, Prannoy, seeded ninth, will face Kalle Koljonen of Finland, while 11th-seeded Lakshya will meet Georges Julien Paul of Mauritius. Srikanth will lock horns with 14th-seeded Kenta Nishimoto of Japan.
More to follow…