Indian badminton queen Pusarla V. Sindhu will be up against possible heir apparent Anmol Kharb in an interesting first round faceoff at the Syed Modi India International 2024 which begins tomorrow in Lucknow.

The Syed Modi International, a Super 300 event, is the penultimate tournament on the HSBC BWF World Tour.

While Pusarla has had a modest season by her standards, with her best being a runner-up finish at the Malaysia Masters back in May, Kharb has shown signs of being the next big thing in Indian badminton. Just 17, she helped make history for India by winning the deciding fifth match in the final of the Badminton Asia Team Championships 2024 in February – India’s biggest women’s team title.

After being wheeled out of Uber Cup with an ankle injury, Kharb returned four months later, and then achieved back to back title successes at the Belgian International and Polish International. Her match against Pusarla will be their first.

The tournament has several of India’s top stars, including Lakshya Sen, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty, Tanisha Crasto/Ashwini Ponnappa and Treesa Jolly/Gayatri Gopichand Pullela.

World junior champions in men’s doubles, Kang Khai Xing/Aaron Tai, are seeded third and face compatriots Lau Yi Sheng/Lee Yi Bo in their opening round.

Withdrawals:

Men’s Singles: Sameer Verma (India)
Men’s Doubles: Goh Boon Zhe/Wong Vin Sean (Malaysia)
Women’s Doubles: Ding Ke Yun/Liu Jia Yue (China)
Mixed Doubles: Ayush Raj Gupta/Sruti Swain (India)

Promotions:

Men’s Singles: Manav Choudhary (India)
Men’s Doubles: Chayanit Joshi/Mayank Rana (India)
Women’s Doubles: Khushi Gupta/Likhita Srivastava (India)
Mixed Doubles: Bharathsanjai/Sania Sikkandar (India)

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