Newly-crowned Canada Open champion Lakshya Sen will hope to continue his winning momentum while beginning his campaign at the US Open Super 300 badminton tournament starting here on Tuesday.
Lakshya turned around a health-related slump in form with a thrilling straight-game win over reigning All England Champion Li Shi Feng in the final of Canada Open Super 500 on Sunday night.
It was his first BWF title in 17 months and Sen will now train his eyes on US Open, where the third-seeded Indian opens his campaign against Finland’s Kalle Koljonen.
Tokyo Olympian B Sai Praneeth, who is going through a poor run of form, will face an uphill task of taming second seed and world number 10 Feng, who lost to the final to Lakshya in Calgary.
In women’s singles, double Olympic medallist P.V. Sindhu, seeded third, will continue her quest for a first title of the season when she opens her campaign against a qualifier.
The Indian had reached the final of the Madrid Spain Masters this year and is coming into the tournament after a good outing at the Canada Open, where she reached the semifinals but lost to eventual champion Akane Yamaguchi.
While Thailand’s former world champion Ratchanok Intanon, the top seed, is in the same half as Sindhu, the field also has some good players such as second seed Busanan Ongbamrungphan, fourth seed Beiwen Zhang and eighth seed Line Christophersen.
Ruthvika Shivani Gadde will begin her campaign against Chinese Taipei’s Lin Hsiang Ti.
In men’s doubles, the duo of Krishna Prasad Garaga and Vishnuvardhan Goud Panjala, who had finished runner-up at the 2021 Orleans Masters and 2022 Syed Modi International, will face Taipei’s Lin Yu Chieh and Su Li Wei.
Panda sisters — Rutaparna and Swetaparna — and Apeksha Nayak and Ramya Chickmenhalli Venkatesh are also in the fray in women’s doubles competition.
